[TelstraClear] TelstraClear outage in Wellington

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › [TelstraClear] TelstraClear outage in Wellington

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Bung

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#56049 21-Dec-2006 12:25

Did the truck hit the pole or snag wires? Juha seems to have got a slightly different story to the initial one. Snagged cables can bring down poles.

juha

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#56052 21-Dec-2006 12:43

Was told it snagged the wires, but I'm not in Wellie so can't check... any GZ readers nearby who could take a pick and post in the forum?

Juha

TCLTECH

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#56059 21-Dec-2006 13:57

Yesterday at approximately 1.30pm a truck carrying an oversized load hit and cut TelstraClear cables in the Khandallah region.

The driver continued driving and caused significant damage and stress to our residential and business network in the area

The impact of the truck broke copper and coax cables and two fibre cables which we repaired overnight. Two of the cables we repaired continued to have problems and may be severely impacted and stressed so technicans are cutting and relaying the two fibres.

The size of the repair is large - we have damage along several hundred metres of fibre cable. The fibres within the plastic sheath have been broken, but are not visible from the ground so identifying the breaks is time consuming. We may need to relay several hundred metres of fibre to restore services. The damage was caused at several points, so this is not a standard single point fault.

Technicians hope to restore all services by this evening. Approximately 3000 residential customers and 30 business customers are affected. Police and power are involved.

nic.wise

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#56060 21-Dec-2006 14:01

juha: I just had a call from Mathew Bolland, the communications manager at TelstraClear, with an update. Yesterday, at around one in the afternoon, a truck with a large tank on the back went through some overhead cables. It caused considerable damage by stretching the cables, so TCL may have to lay up to a kilometre of new fibre.

Mat says it may take up until tonight before service is fully restored.

Seems pretty fast to me, considering the length of fibre-optic cable that needs to be replaced.

1KM!?

Oh, thats gotta hurt someone's bank account!!

No problems in Brooklyn.... ;-)

Nic Wise - fastchicken.co.nz

matb

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#56068 21-Dec-2006 15:31

Thanks for updating everyone Juha.

The problem is bigger than we first enountered. When the truck hit the overhead fibre cable it didn't just pull it down and break it at the impact point, it stretched it resulting in numerous breaks 150 metres either side of the impact point.

Our guys have been on the scene since it happened yesterday afternoon and got cable TV back on for a number of customers this morning.

They are working to get a key node back on line by 5pm, which should mean we get the remaining 2-300 phone lines back on.

We will, however, need to do a fibre overlay over several hundred metres and this can't be done with services live. This means we'll need to wait until early in the morning and transfer services to a new cable. We are aiming to get cable modem customers back by about 5am tomorrow.

We'll be providing an update to Radio NZ for their 5pm bulletin.

Apoliogies to those impacted - the truck was over height and once we get this sorted we'll be having some pretty terse discussions.

regards

Mat Bolland
Head of Communications
TelstraClear

juha

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#56070 21-Dec-2006 15:53

... and thanks for jumping into the GZ forums Mat. I'm sure people here appreciate being kept informed.

Juha

mushion22

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#56077 21-Dec-2006 16:28

Hmmm good to know it's being fixed ASAP, but it does kind of raise questions in my mind about diversity and robustness in TCL's network.

I'm certainly no network engineer, and this is just entirely my mostly uneducated opinion, but surely there should be some type of multi-route diversity? For example, services are out in Aro Valley, but are on in Brooklyn. If there had been an extra couple of KMs of Fibre between them (the two suburbs are adjacent), surely the network could have routed around the outage?

I suppose it makes it harder when TCL has mainly roadside cabinets rather than larger exchanges like telecom.

And I also seem to recall around this time last year a rat and a workman causing some... "considerable issues" ...on a certain incumbent's network so I guess I shouldn't complain about TCL too much :)

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TCLTECH

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#56145 22-Dec-2006 09:03

This should be fully resolved now, It is possible customers will need to restart there cable modems.

sbiddle

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#56148 22-Dec-2006 10:32

It's good to see TCL moving forward and even posting on Geekzone now. Hopefully this can lead to great things!

juha

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#56149 22-Dec-2006 10:39

Jodine at TCL sent some pictures of the site - I've put them up in the News section.

Full marks to TCL communications on this one...

Juha

antoniosk

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#56192 22-Dec-2006 16:57

juha: Jodine at TCL sent some pictures of the site - I've put them up in the News section.

Full marks to TCL communications on this one...

I'd say the truck driver will have some infamy as well - knocking down a pole that pulls down the overhead wires, as well as damaging the underground network. 10/10 for effort....

________

Antoniosk

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