Spark outage 7 dec

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Spark outage 7 dec

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'That VDSL Cat'
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#2370385 8-Dec-2019 10:02

noroad:
yea, one side of the fibre cut (it was dual!) has been restored.

Yup bunch are being cutover. Should start seeing sevices come up.

Rough night for all the providers impacted.

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noroad

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#2370395 8-Dec-2019 10:24

Yup bunch are being cutover. Should start seeing services come up.

Rough night for all the providers impacted.

I don't think most people realise the incredible efforts that the guys on the ground often put in to restore services in this situation. Some of the temporary fixes I have seen are quite impressive, stringing a fibre/power cable up across a raging river after a bridge has been washed away. Of course they do this in often very challenging conditions, I've often thought when people think of these "New Zealander of the year" type awards its never the linesmen putting himself on the line to restore essential services getting recognised.

noroad

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#2370401 8-Dec-2019 10:26

"Issue: Due to the extreme weather conditions overnight we experienced a fibre outage on both the Eastern and Western core fibres in the South Island.

Update: Fibre technicians have restored all data services using spare fibres on the Eastern route. Cell site restoration is continuing, with 157 sites restored of the 163 impacted. We expect the remaining 6 sites to be fully restored shortly.

The next stage of work is to repair the Western fibre, as soon as the area is accessible.

Please note until core fibre redundancy is restored there is a major risk to service, due to the current weather in the area and the physical access challenges that currently exist."

paul151

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#2370403 8-Dec-2019 10:29

noroad:

"Issue: Due to the extreme weather conditions overnight we experienced a fibre outage on both the Eastern and Western core fibres in the South Island.

Update: Fibre technicians have restored all data services using spare fibres on the Eastern route. Cell site restoration is continuing, with 157 sites restored of the 163 impacted. We expect the remaining 6 sites to be fully restored shortly.

The next stage of work is to repair the Western fibre, as soon as the area is accessible.

Please note until core fibre redundancy is restored there is a major risk to service, due to the current weather in the area and the physical access challenges that currently exist."

Really appreciate the timely info and the work the troops on the ground are doing to get things running again. Thank you!

freitasm

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#2370406 8-Dec-2019 10:51

Just received:

Spark can confirm that almost all of the impacted South Island broadband, mobile and landline services have now been restored. This has been achieved by a work-around using spare fibre strands and additional cables.

Unfortunately, due to extreme weather conditions resulting in flooding and slips in the area, both damaged fibre sites are still inaccessible and the timeline to restore these will depend on accessibility.

While the restoration of services is good news, Spark would like to remind customers that services are still vulnerable as they are reliant on a damaged cable which could be affected by moving weather conditions. Our team will continue to monitor the situation and share further updates as soon as possible.

We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience and loss of service since last night and thank them for their patience as our team continues work to assess and restore services.

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halper86

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#2370411 8-Dec-2019 11:08

freitasm:
Just received:

Spark can confirm that almost all of the impacted South Island broadband, mobile and landline services have now been restored. This has been achieved by a work-around using spare fibre strands and additional cables.

Unfortunately, due to extreme weather conditions resulting in flooding and slips in the area, both damaged fibre sites are still inaccessible and the timeline to restore these will depend on accessibility.

While the restoration of services is good news, Spark would like to remind customers that services are still vulnerable as they are reliant on a damaged cable which could be affected by moving weather conditions. Our team will continue to monitor the situation and share further updates as soon as possible.

We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience and loss of service since last night and thank them for their patience as our team continues work to assess and restore services.

So this potentially means that there is going to be more outages as they repair those fibres after the techs can get there?

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linw

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#2370422 8-Dec-2019 11:16

Agree, these guys, and the power chaps as well, deserve more recognition. It's almost always in the worst weather conditions and highest risk situations.

Mahon

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#2370567 8-Dec-2019 18:31

freitasm: Just received:

Spark customers are currently experiencing landline, broadband and mobile outages due to flooding and slips across the South Island affecting our network.

Unfortunately, our technicians have been unable to access these sites due to road closures as a result of extreme weather conditions.

All Spark mobile, landline and broadband customers south of Ashburton are affected. However, mobile phones can still make 111 calls and we encourage people to check on neighbours who may not have access to mobile phones.

Our team are working hard to find alternative solutions to resolve the situation and hope to share an update as soon as possible.

We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience.

Wasnt just Spark. I am 2 degrees broadband and mobile and lost all services last night.

hio77

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#2370569 8-Dec-2019 18:36

halper86:
So this potentially means that there is going to be more outages as they repair those fibres after the techs can get there?

It's really just honest warning that hey, there is only one of the diverse paths up, and so there is risk that it can't fail over right at this moment.

at least in my personal opinion it's the right thing to communicate rather than saying everything's fixed! only to have another national disaster damage those.

In reality, the bulk of the weather has passed. unless anything else gives way it's likely to be fine while the teams make further repairs.

Mahon:

Wasnt just Spark. I am 2 degrees broadband and mobile and lost all services last night.

This thread itself is mainly about spark and that PR quoted was directly from spark. Different providers were impacted in different ways.

It's my understanding that 2D were using an alternative path. so while they didnt totally get cut, their was drips of bandwidth still there.

It's interesting to look at the model of a really slow alternative path.. at a high level it sounds good, afterall internet still works right?

but from a support point of view outright loss of service is a heck of alot easier to manage than the many other issues, be it disconnections, slow speed etc.

I'm sure the discussion around this will be had across many RSP's and service providers (chorus's network was hit very heavily too, which would impact smaller providers using tail extensions a fair bit)

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yitz

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#2370596 8-Dec-2019 19:58

Must be the fibre optics running through that green conduit 😢

kinginvercargill

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#2370598 8-Dec-2019 20:01

yitz:

Must be the fibre optics running through that green conduit 😢

Just like this one 😢

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Oblivian

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#2370602 8-Dec-2019 20:08

That first bridge with large hole is Little Man on SH6 on the coast however (one of the areas that had a known fault update on ottages page)

Tracer

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#2370618 8-Dec-2019 20:08

hio77:

This thread itself is mainly about spark and that PR quoted was directly from spark. Different providers were impacted in different ways.

It's my understanding that 2D were using an alternative path. so while they didnt totally get cut, their was drips of bandwidth still there.

2d worked at about 1.3 Mbps until approx 10pm, then fell over completely after that.

kiwirock

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#2370702 8-Dec-2019 21:27

This is why I'm considering a satellite backup so I'll still have access to news bulletins to broadcast in the event of a major disruption to normal communications. Kacific1 is sitting waiting to go up soon. At least power wasn't effected, although I did do an oil and fuel change on the generator in the garage last week.

Mahon

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#2370714 8-Dec-2019 21:52

2 degrees still not back to normal..unable to stream movies in prime time....so I am assuming its not 100% yet.

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