Any truth to this story quite old - South Island internet outage.

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Any truth to this story quite old - South Island internet outage.

PaulZA

314 posts

Ultimate Geek

#106521 25-Jul-2012 17:44

Hi guys a few years back I can vividly recall someone telling me that a few years back there were two fibre cables, one main and one backup linking the North and South Island between the cook strait, and they were either servicing, or repairing the main cable so they switched to the backup fibre cable. After that, the boat with the guys fixing the cable dropped it's anchor on the backup cable, effective cutting the whole South Island off from the rest of the world.

Any truth to this story?

thanks

Zeon

3916 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#661912 25-Jul-2012 17:47

yea it did happen. From what I can recall it was only Telecom NZ backhaul and occurred when a rat had chewed a cable on the Wairarapa side of their ring and then a digger hit the other part of the rings near Waikanae?

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DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek

#661924 25-Jul-2012 18:03

Zeon: yea it did happen. From what I can recall it was only Telecom NZ backhaul and occurred when a rat had chewed a cable on the Wairarapa side of their ring and then a digger hit the other part of the rings near Waikanae?

pffft... typical incompetent telecom... $InsertTotallyUnfairTelecomBashingCommentsOfYourChoice ...

Seriously, this does so happen and it's a real problem for everyone and not a reflection of Telecom or its staff in my view.

Optus got stung a few years back with a link being out of service to Qld waiting on parts and then a digger took out the other link.

It was really really amazing to see what happened with the Qld floods though. Providers all working together to share what ever resource was still running while capacity was fixed.

It's a real balancing act. Do you spend millions on redundant paths for something that might never happen? How do you justify to the board and share holders all this expense on kit that never gets used?

Then how do you compete in the market place with the provider who doesn't carry the same spares and is just lucky for a decade and doesn't have a fault?

This is exactly why I made the point in my post the other day about running a link to Hobart and doing a branch into Wellington. If there's a major disaster in Wellington or Auckland then we have a big problem.

Promote New Zealand - Get yourself a .kiwi.nz domain name!!!

Check out mine - i.am.a.can.do.kiwi.nz - don@i.am.a.can.do.kiwi.nz

nickb800

2715 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#661939 25-Jul-2012 18:33

Vaguely related to the OP, but I think you will find this interesting, its a US perspective on fibre cuts
http://blog.level3.com/2011/08/04/the-10-most-bizarre-and-annoying-causes-of-fiber-cuts/

Jaxar

383 posts

Ultimate Geek

#662269 26-Jul-2012 11:34

I recall that day well it was when I was fairly new to working for an ISP.

Please note: I have a professional bias towards Vodafone.