Fibre optic cable cut to South Island's largest school.

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Fibre optic cable cut to South Island's largest school.

yitz

2238 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 594

#324037 18-Feb-2026 23:15

I'm surprised there is a single fibre demarc point to a school of this size and location.

A contractor’s mistake has forced thousands of students at Christchurch’s largest school to learn from home.

Burnside High School, which has about 2600 students, will have compulsory online learning on Thursday for all students.

The school said in a statement a contractor working on the water mains replacement on Greers Rd inadvertently cut the school’s internet connection on Wednesday morning.

- https://www.thepress.co.nz/nz-news/360952408/burnside-high-school-offline-students-learn-home-after-internet-cut

1 | 2

260 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 143

Trusted

#3462826 18-Feb-2026 23:23

It is very surprising that the school needs to close as a result of not having internet. Until recently no schools in NZ had internet, and they still managed to teach students. The article gives two reasons, that the student management system requires internet, as well as the fire management system. The later is very concerning, if there is a risk to safety if the internet goes down, it doesn't seem like the system is fit for purpose. And in any case, surely these two systems could be managed through a backup cellular internet connection?

mattwnz

20515 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 4795

#3462828 18-Feb-2026 23:36

Got to wonder why they are relying on a single point of failure and it causes the school to close. Surely they should have redundancy in case the internet goes down such as connection via a mobile connection fit essential services.

Handle9

11924 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 9675

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3462829 19-Feb-2026 01:20

nova:

Until recently no schools in NZ had internet, and they still managed to teach students.

Recently like the 1990s? Schools have been a focus for internet connection for several decades.

There aren't many businesses that can operate without internet today, schools are no exception.

Handle9

11924 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 9675

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3462830 19-Feb-2026 01:21

mattwnz:

Got to wonder why they are relying on a single point of failure and it causes the school to close. Surely they should have redundancy in case the internet goes down such as connection via a mobile connection fit essential services.

Then they are relying on a single point of failure for a safety critical system if the internet has failed.

The fire regulations dictate the circumstances of how a building can operate.

ascroft

437 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 177

#3462832 19-Feb-2026 05:25

Not sure if it applies in this case but I would change the law and prosecute any party that did not conduct due diligence checks using beforeUdig that creates this kind of disruption. Laisse fare NZ isn’t working well in the digital age.

Bit sick of hearing of ‘contractors mistake’ causing major impacts to innocent third parties….

"Artificial Intelligence" - aka Machine Learning 2.0

Goosey

3014 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 867

Subscriber

#3462835 19-Feb-2026 06:15

I’m failing to understand that how a comms cut can affect fire safety?

Is the school saying their fire panel only communicates via fibre wan connection?

if that’s the case, then that’s really bad…..really really bad.

Lenovo

Shop now for Lenovo laptops and other devices (affiliate link).

nitro

757 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 335

#3462839 19-Feb-2026 06:46

ascroft:

Not sure if it applies in this case but I would change the law and prosecute any party that did not conduct due diligence checks using beforeUdig that creates this kind of disruption. Laisse fare NZ isn’t working well in the digital age.

Bit sick of hearing of ‘contractors mistake’ causing major impacts to innocent third parties….

that won't make a difference for genuine human errors. redundancy is the key.

xpd

Geek of Coastguard
14115 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 4574

Retired Mod

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3462840 19-Feb-2026 06:53

I know I'm old, but back before the internet, we had these things called "books" and "pen and paper", and the teachers were fountains of knowledge.

XPD / Gavin

LinkTree

wired

191 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 72

#3462935 19-Feb-2026 07:56

Goosey:

I’m failing to understand that how a comms cut can affect fire safety?

Is the school saying their fire panel only communicates via fibre wan connection?

if that’s the case, then that’s really bad…..really really bad.

previously, they probably only had a single copper connection to the monitoring centre which can fail in a similar manner.
They probably have a single point of failure for their power, water, sewage etc. too.

It is surprising how the Internet failure seems to have become more news worthy than those other services.

tim0001

274 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 146

#3462949 19-Feb-2026 08:29

Meanwhile, around the country, kids are trying to come up with sneaky ways to cut their schools’ fibre connections.

nztim

4012 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 2710

ID Verified

Trusted

TEAMnetwork

Subscriber

#3462964 19-Feb-2026 09:11

Handle9:

There aren't many businesses that can operate without internet today, schools are no exception.

Yet so many businesses rely on a $100 per month basic internet service for their entire business that falls fla

When there was the half day chorus outage across all of the lower north island mid last year many cafes in Wellington went back to taking orders with Pen and Paper and still put out cash only signs....

Some businesses were lucky enough that their eftpos machines had sim cards

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

New World

Shop on-line at New World now for your groceries (affiliate link).

ascroft

437 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 177

#3463000 19-Feb-2026 11:35

nitro:

ascroft:

Not sure if it applies in this case but I would change the law and prosecute any party that did not conduct due diligence checks using beforeUdig that creates this kind of disruption. Laisse fare NZ isn’t working well in the digital age.

Bit sick of hearing of ‘contractors mistake’ causing major impacts to innocent third parties….

that won't make a difference for genuine human errors. redundancy is the key.

Define ‘genuine human error’ - is not conducting due diligence before commencing work an error? Not in my world………

My guess (unproven) would be 80% of issues is due to not performing due diligence, 20% human error after due diligence was performed.

"Artificial Intelligence" - aka Machine Learning 2.0

Lias

5655 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 3978

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3463380 20-Feb-2026 17:50

xpd:

I know I'm old, but back before the internet, we had these things called "books" and "pen and paper", and the teachers were fountains of knowledge.

They don't really use those in college any more. The amount of stationary I need to buy for two college kids is less than I did for a single primary school kid. Almost everything is digital and I for one have no problem with that.

I'm a geek, a gamer, a dad, a Quic user, and an IT Professional. I have a full rack home lab, size 15 feet, an epic beard and Asperger's. I'm a bit of a Cypherpunk, who believes information wants to be free and the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. If you use my Quic signup you can also use the code R570394EKGIZ8 for free setup. Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

everettpsycho

668 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 270

#3463392 20-Feb-2026 20:12

Not sure a school should be set up in a way that no Internet means they can't function at all, the joys of cloud based platforms running business.

As much as redundancy is key you have to think, a second feed in is not always possible and can cost a hell of a lot of money to have put in. Often if you have a second regular connection it will go back to the same cabinet and central office. A full diverse redundant connection is expensive to put in and expensive to keep. This is the first time I've heard of any school having this issue. When push comes to shove would any tax payer really want the government to spend millions of dollars to avoid one day at one school in a blue moon. Outage wise I'd say cloudflare, crowd strike, Microsoft and Google outages cause significantly more impact than single fibre routes in. If they are going to go cloud services they should have a fall back plan like any core service. I literally have a memory stick to populate a fresh clean laptop as part of BCP, will I ever need it? Unlikely, but it's an essential backup to doing business in an emergency.

ascroft

437 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 177

#3463447 21-Feb-2026 11:05

Now there is another outage in AKL… 6000 homes affected.

RNZ have a picture of transmission lines with the story - rather amused by that….. :-)

Wonder if this will be another contractor not doing due diligence before commencing work.

"Artificial Intelligence" - aka Machine Learning 2.0

1 | 2