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The Internet Communications Networking

Undersea Cable Break Disrupts Life In Northern Mariana Islands 102

Posted by timothy from the pigeons-brought-this-news dept.
An anonymous reader writes: The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands experienced a devastating undersea cable break on Wednesday, with phone, Internet, SMS, banking services, the National Weather Service office, and airliners all being affected. The US territory depends on a single undersea fiber optic connection with Guam for its connectivity to the outside world (except for a backup microwave link, which was itself damaged during a recent storm). While services are in the process of being restored, this may be a prime example of the need for reliable backup systems in our "always connected" mindset.
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Undersea Cable Break Disrupts Life In Northern Mariana Islands More

Undersea Cable Break Disrupts Life In Northern Mariana Islands

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  • Disrupts 'Life' (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Here I was thinking this was about some adverse effect of electricity+salt water on the ecosystem surrounding the islands, but no, it's about people being unable to stream porn until it's fixed.

    This is the definition of 'first-world problems'.

  • No, it's not. (Score:3)

    by ScentCone ( 795499 ) on Sunday July 12, 2015 @11:57PM (#50096105)
    I think it's a prime example of why choosing to live on a remote island served by only one cable and one fragile microwave link is just part of the bargain when you choose to live on a remote island. The whole "having more backups" thing is actually pretty well covered in most continental locations.

    BTW, is it just me? Am I the only one that, while using Chrome to view /. these days, is getting a periodic, hands-off lurching scroll/navigation to the top of the page while either writing or passively reading? I have been too lazy to figure out which script/object is offending. But it's astoundingly obnoxious.
    • no it started happening to me today and has been all day. no rhyme or reason on the timing though so im not sure whats going on

    • me too

      started yesterday for me

      it's worst when you're trying to comment and midsentence you're suddenly at the top of the page

      slashdot: i'm not really sure what the deal is, but your UI could use some attention

    • How many backups do you need, really?

      This were two seemingly unrelated events that independently took out two links. You can add links ad infinito but where do you end? Having two links sounds reasonable to me. It's just bad luck that one gets damaged, and the second has an outage before the first can be fixed. Odds of that happening are pretty low. Adding a third link won't make the whole thing that much more reliable as likely they are already at >99%.

      • That's pretty much my point. We're talking about a small population that chooses to live on a very remote island. They have a primary pipe, and a backup (down for weather damage at the moment). The article is implying that we're supposed to learn a lesson from this ... but they've got it backwards. The lesson isn't "MOAR BACKUPZ!" ... it's, "If you want to live an exotic, remote lifestyle, there are some trade-offs that come with that."

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cdrudge ( 68377 )

        How many backups do you need, really?

        Murphy's law would suggest you need n+1, where n is the number of links currently down as well as the number of links you actually have.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tgeller ( 10260 )
      "...choosing to live on a remote island."

      "Choosing"? Really?

      That's just ignorant.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ScentCone ( 795499 )

        That's just ignorant.

        Really? Cost of living in places like that is sky-high compared to almost any other setting, unless you want to live a fairly primitive existence. But we're talking about access to high-speed internet connectivity. People whose lifestyles demand fiber connectivity are not trapped on an island with no way off. You're either trollish or not even bothering to try to think this through. Still, you're right - this would make an excellent new piece of Outrage Fuel for the Daily Social Justice Warrior marching or

  • It's interesting how Joe Q. Public continues to think that their data and voice zips around the globe via satellites, when in reality the vast majority moves on our terrestrial networks.

    Just last week I overheard someone commenting on how their text messages were going via satellite.
    • A satellite has limited and expensive bandwidth and high latency. It's cheaper and faster to use fiber. The public also thinks their phone calls go over coper wire, when almost the entire telephone system was converted to packet switched internet years ago.

      • A satellite has limited and expensive bandwidth and high latency. It's cheaper and faster to use fiber. The public also thinks their phone calls go over coper wire, when almost the entire telephone system was converted to packet switched internet years ago.

        The last mile is usually copper and that's where all the issues are, hence why people think that way.

    • SpaceX and OneWeb are trying very hard to vindicate Joe Q. Public on a huge scale, though. ;)

  • Reliability Engineers (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Pretty much any Engineer who works in Reliability and Maintenance has known this for years... Redundancy is king. In fact, the redundancy is usually there to allow you to do the maintenance.

    • And your point is...????

      They had a redundant MW link, it was trashed by the same storm that cut the cable, how much more should 50k people spend on redundant infrastructure panning for a freak double fail event that may never happen again? Sure it's a major inconvenience to be cut off from the world for a few days but it's hardly a national disaster.

    • Nonsense, that redundancy for this island would cost money no one is willing to pony up. It wasn't that important so they don't have it

  • Start countdown to baby boom in 9 months.

  • It's hard to believe that there is not a single VSAT connection available or even a HAM radio with someone running Linux and broadcasting/receiving packets. Weather data would be my first concern. I wonder how many of the elders remember how to navigate and read the weather the old fashioned way?
    • There likely are several HAM radio sites on the island, and they are likely routing their personal internet over the air. However the bandwidth is probably at dialup speeds so I doubt they are sharing. I doubt the (Polynesian?) elders are up to speed with celestial navigation, especially with GPS still up and running.

    • I wonder how many youngsters remember that the regional weather is broadcast over that one-way push medium known as radio? Not you, apparently

  • Or... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Monday July 13, 2015 @12:36AM (#50096223)

    this may be a prime example of the need for reliable backup systems in our "always connected" mindset.

    Or it may be a prime example how helpless many systems are with even a small break in connectivity, and point to a strong need for all systems to be built with robust (or any!) offline modes...

    Airlines being affected for example is bullshit - the schedules for example are all known months ahead of time. That the systems had not cached everything needed for a few weeks at least verges on criminal. Incoming planes can carry USB sticks with updated manifests and other data...

    • Or it may be a prime example how helpless...

      Helpless? In this day and age of everyone being glued to a screen, I think it's actually a good thing to have an enforced break from technology once in a while. I wish something like this would happen here, it might make people reflect a bit more and question which types of technology are useful and which aren't.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by msobkow ( 48369 )

        The panic that set in the last time internet service to my town was disrupted was so severed that this one town was able to overload SaskTel's help lines for four hours. That's right. The panic of 15,000 people calling in to ask when it's going to be fixed swamped the call center for a province of 1.1 million.

        A widespread outage would likely result in mobs and suicides...

  • Why don't they have a sat link? (Score:3)

    by Karmashock ( 2415832 ) on Monday July 13, 2015 @12:42AM (#50096257)

    F'ing cruise ships have that... you'd think the island could afford ONE satlink. Just for emergencies.

    • A sat link isn't a viable alternative for providing data access to a government, much less an entire country.

      TFA mentions the microwave backup being down, because commercial microwave links actually can provide significant levels of bandwidth.
      The only real limit is line of sight and how much you want to spend.

      And as always: Two is one and one is none.
      There's a reason why NASA uses triple redundancy when they want something to never fail.

      • ... Don't be obtuse. The sat link would give you enough bandwidth to handle banking, text messages, etc. Enough that people could deal with the issue and would not be cut off. You do not need high bandwidth communication in an EMERGENCY.

    • You probably never have experienced how fast and reliable such a sat link is (it's not).

      I've talked to quite some cruise passengers, and most of them avoid using the sat link. It's very slow, unreliable, and expensive to boot (they generally have to pay by the minute instead of always on). That's just used by a couple thousand people, while here it's about a slightly larger community.

      • I know exactly how shitty they are... it doesn't matter. You'd have enough bandwidth to sustain banking, outgoing/incoming text messages... that sort of thing. Critical communications would be maintained. Outgoing phone calls? No. General access to the internet for everyone? Absolutely not. Core services could be routed through the sat link though and it would work.

        What is more... the cruise sat links are shitty even for sat links. Most of the tv crews beam their broadcasts by satellite... FULL VIDEO AND SO

    • And when more than one person uses it on a cruise ship it slows to an unusable crawl.

      Seriously what would one small low bandwidth link solve?

      • ... I'm sorry I referenced the cruise ship because you guys really know fucking nothing about how much bandwidth the sats can handle. You could very easily give the whole island high speed broadband with one of those systems. You'd just need to prioritize the island over other users.

        Many tv news channels uplink their video through satellites. That's full video and sound.

        And keep in mind, we're talking about maintaining basic services during an emergency. Not keeping your spank bank queue humming. Banking se

        • I am showing imagination. The imagination of thousands of selfish people who will do precisely what during an emergency? Facebook, long phone conversations etc.

          I don't need to use my imagination. The article has done it for me. So far people affected were business internet services, international airline systems, and my favourite quote: "Internet features on their phones".

          Emergencies can be handled on a local level. Support from off-site does not need some high-bandwidth satellite link, it just needs one or

          • ... Nope... you are showing zero imagination because you think if I had a limited bandwidth life line that I'd let you overwhelm it with facebook.

            that's fucking retarded.

            I would do no such thing.

            Internet for everyone? No. Internet for a few key systems? YES. This is easily manged at the ISP and is done all the time.

            How about access for the phone provider? Local calls are fine. Pick your phone up and call your neighbor.

            But if you want to call out... No. It won't even ring. Send a text message though? Okay. W

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dissy ( 172727 )

      F'ing cruise ships have that... you'd think the island could afford ONE satlink. Just for emergencies.

      That is pretty much the problem, they apparently only could afford the one backup radio link
      (after the problem of the primary fiber break of course)

      The US territory depends on a single undersea fiber optic connection with Guam for its connectivity to the outside world (except for a backup microwave link, which was itself damaged during a recent storm)

      So they could afford and did have One radio transceiver using a dish, and it was damaged as well.

      As far as a ground station at the island goes, there is little difference to a large storm between a microwave transceiver and a satellite transceiver. If they still only had the one backup dish at the same location just of the other type, it would have been damaged

      • Your point about putting all the back ups in one place is a good one.

        This is why backup procedures are to have the back ups be in different places.

        Generally you want THREE redundant systems if you want a system that does not drop. And you want each of those systems to be in different places and possibly of different natures.

        That all three will get knocked out at the same time is unlikely.

  • I was thinking of the Mariana islands as a 'close enough' for me stop-gap. Crap. There must be some other Micronesian territory left that didn't get suckered into independence.

  • When you live in the boonies, you learn to make do without all of the benefits of civilized society from time to time.

    They could always have set up additional backup links via satellite, a secondary microwave link, etc. They chose not to invest the money. Now they suffer the consequences.

    They've no one to blame but themselves. It's not a "conspiracy" as some have claimed. It's just bad luck.

  • Mariana Islands official here,

    I have just put a redundancy plan in the todo list.

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