Satellite Glitch Leaves Northern Canada In the (Internet) Dark 282
zentigger writes "At approximately 06:36 EDT Thursday, October 6, 2011, the Anik F2 satellite experienced an attitude control issue and lost earth lock, affecting C, Ku and Ka services. The satellite went into safety mode and moved from pointing to the earth to pointing to the sun. This has put most of Northern Canada in the dark as all internet and phone services come in over F2."
Don't worry, they're Canadians (Score:4, Funny)
So they will politely and patiently wait out the problem.
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Why is the default position for the satellite to provide internet acces to the sun?
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I would guess as to not interfere with other satellite signals. The antennae are design to broadcast in a certain pattern.
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Yeah, but if multiple satellites point at the sun then it still gets interference.
The Sun has yet to send us an angry letter saying we're interfering with its soaps.
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If the residents of the sun would care to file a complaint, I'm sure it will be given due consideration.
Re:Don't worry, they're Canadians (Score:4, Interesting)
They're probably only 10 people, anyway.
I was one of the '10' the last time [wikimedia.org] this happened.
I was living in Iqaluit [wikimedia.org] at the time, but was actually in flight to Pond Inlet [wikimedia.org] at the northern tip of Baffin Island when the outage occurred. It was a very bizarre feeling to arrive in one of the most remote communities in the world and find I'd stepped back in time by a century.
Telephone, TV, and most other means of communications simply stopped. But people in the Arctic are adaptable. They don't last long if they aren't. Emergency communications were hopped from airport-to-pilot-to-ground from the hamlet (It's a LONG way from any other habitation). We hunkered down, and yes, politely waited for news.
As the wikipedia link indicates, we waited for days while the local telco flew technicians across the territory to reposition their dishes and get services running.
It was the experience of living in a remote location - close to the technological edge, as it were - that led me to drop what I was doing a few years later and leave for the South Pacific, where I live today. (Also: When I left Iqaluit, I promised myself I'd never be cold again.) I live in a country with only satellite service, and have worked for the last 8 years helping to improve communications here.
(Not so) amusingly, about a year and a half after I arrived, the satellite providing service to our region suffered catastrophic failure [imagicity.com]. I was able to use my experience in the Arctic to help convince people here of the dangers of relying on a single source of data communications. We should be getting a submarine cable in 2012-13, and once that happens, I just might be able to rely on Internet again.
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I've been in places like that before, and it's about all that you can do. There is no sense in getting upset over something that is beyond anyone's control.
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That's only half of the year, the other half of the year they're always in the Light.
Get an academic on this pronto (Score:4, Insightful)
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Northern Canada is not really a first-world region. It's mostly empty, frozen land and remote communities of native people living pretty basic lifestyles. Not much in common with the cities in the South.
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What do Ghana, Zimbabwe, and Afghanistan have in common? That's right, no polar bears at all.
So as you can see, countries with polar bears are developed, those without are less developed. Q.E.D. Canada is a developed country because it has polar bears.
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There are no polar bears in the UK, Japan or Germany.
Q.E.D. robthebloke is too lazy to do a two second internet search.
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They are in downtown Berlin:
http://www.eisbaeren.de/content/index.php [eisbaeren.de]
They are even being made in the UK:
http://www.polarbears.co.uk/ [polarbears.co.uk]
Japan is the number 1 importer of polar bears:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20091002f4.html [japantimes.co.jp]
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So what you're saying is that we should start a polar bear breeding program in less developed countries?
Re:Get an academic on this pronto (Score:4, Insightful)
A right?
I don't think you know what that word is.
There are only individual rights. The 'civil or labor rights' are actually entitlements given by government decree to some, while imposing obligations on others. Same with anything else that you have to be provided by somebody. It's an entitlement, not a right.
I had this same discussion a number of times, why do people never seem to understand basic concepts?
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2450838&cid=37575982 [slashdot.org]
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2450838&cid=37554214 [slashdot.org]
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2450838&cid=37558726 [slashdot.org]
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2450838&cid=37558814 [slashdot.org]
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2450838&cid=37558814 [slashdot.org]
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2450838&cid=37556278 [slashdot.org]
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2450838&cid=37553622 [slashdot.org]
'Right' is a concept that is only meaningful to describe a relationship between an individual an government, because gov't is a system, not an individual.
Relationships between private individuals and businesses are covered by criminal and contract law.
Having a 'right' to Internet would require this to be an obligation upon businesses that would have to provide this entitlement, obviously this would make it into an 'essential' service and the prices, by the way, would immediately be much higher than what they are now.
See health care, insurance, education and AT&T monopoly that was given to it by government, which destroyed 4000 competitors for a good example of how that shit works.
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I don't think this is accurate. You have the right to speak, and I don't have the right to stop you. I just have the right to not assist you in any way, or allow you to use my property to execute that right. This is true in individual transactions, even when there is no government involved.
In a broader sense, I completely agree with your comments
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Do you even have two functioning brain cells to rub together ?
Northern Canada is the sparsely-populated area that's too friggin cold for most Canadians. There are only a handful of small towns up there, primarily native americans and the occasional labour town. Not only is the population very very small, but I'd wager that very few of them are technically minded. The mere fact that all of their telecomms are handled by a lone satellite should be a pretty big hint about how minimal their needs are. It's
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This is the perfect chance to find out the real cost of a first world nation not having internet access.
You haven't been to northern Canada have you? It's about as sparsely populated a place as you are ever likely to find. The vast majority of the population lives within a few hours drive of the southern border.
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Come freeze your balls off and see for yourself.
No thanks, I'd just spend too much time looking at the empty space where my balls used to sit.......
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Deceptive Summary (Score:2)
Even the editors* noticed that and added the parenthetical clarification.
"In the dark" does not mean "in the literal darkness, without the power to generate light or heat." I.e., not a power generation or distribution problem, which is the expected context of the stock phrase "in the dark".
They mean "In the INTARWEBS dark." As in, no Facebook, no Twitter, no YouTube.
You know, an actual crisis.
*Seriously. How bad do you have to be, that the world-famous Slashdot Editor Corps feels compelled to actually edit
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Although you are correct in that it is not a literal power outage, it is far more than just the "INTARWEBS", because so much in the North depends on Satellite communication.
From the article:
"People in Iqaluit are reporting they are without cell phone service and long-distance calling, bank machines and debit-card machines. At least one bank in the city has not opened today as a result. Flights are also being delayed."
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From the article: "People in Iqaluit are reporting they are without cell phone service and long-distance calling, bank machines and debit-card machines. At least one bank in the city has not opened today as a result. Flights are also being delayed."
From the book of Common F. Sense: "Banks and other critical infrastructure services should probably consider a backup land-line. It wasn't that long ago that ATM/debit card machines were dialing up to the banks. A slow bank transaction is a hell of a lot better than NO bank transaction."
Along those same lines, don't suppose there would be any industry-wide regulation that requires that banks and other critical infrastructure services actually have a backup connection or plan to mitigate mass outages like
Meanwhile (Score:3, Funny)
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As a long time AOL user and satisfied customer, it's not very often I get the chance to call anybody else a wuss....
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But I hear the chicks are HOT!
Oblig... (Score:3)
It's as if a hundred voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
Ok, sorry that was in bad taste. I love my frosty neighbors to the North (I've spent a lot of time in Canada and really do love the place and the people). I hope they get interwebz back soon.
Is the internet in Canada 100% satellite? (Score:2)
Re:Is the internet in Canada 100% satellite? (Score:4, Informative)
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Dont they have undersea fiber connections to the country, and DSL and stuff?
Or even dialup?
Why would half the country use only Satellite as thier Internet connection?
99.999999% of Candians live within 100 miles of the U.S. Border, in towns and cities, with cable and dsl.
There are 6,784 people living north of about 52N. Even some of these people may have cable and satellite in their towns, but the towns rely on satellites for their uplinks.
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Ok... I actually checked the population numbers... Canada total - 35MM. Northwestern Territories - 43,000. Nunavummiut - 33,000. Biggest cities in each are 20,000 and 6,000, respectively. So, that is a whole 0.2% without internet service if the whole territories are out.
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I live in the Yukon. Only one of our communities, Old Crow, is on a satellite uplink. Everywhere else in the territory is linked by either fiber or a microwave shot. However, in the NWT and Nunavut they have many remote communities like Old Crow that don't even have road access, and therefore satellite is the only realistic option.
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Dont they have undersea fiber connections to the country, and DSL and stuff?
Yup, it runs under the Canadian ocean which entirely separates the continent of the USA from the continent of canada.
Or even dialup?
This is no time for pizza.
Why would half the country use only Satellite as thier Internet connection?
Because the other half are running away from man eating polar bears.
Summary missed a few key words (Score:3)
Northwestel data map (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.nwtel.ca/media/images/operating_map_full.jpg [nwtel.ca]
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So that's like what, 100 people or so?
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It’s a little bay on Kluane Lake. It’s named that because they lost so much equipment there while building the Alcan (Alaskan) Highway. There’s not much there. The nearby village of Burwash has a gas station, restaurant, and hotel, and that’s about it. There are a number of Athabaskans (Northern Tutchone I think, or maybe the northernmost Southern Tutchone) living around there, as well as a few white folks. It’s a beautiful place in the summer, but it’s ferociously cold a
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This could be really bad for some of the medical clinics. I could be wrong but I think I read somewhere that a good number of small clinics in that area depend on video conferencing so that staff can consult with doctors in larger clinics. Add in the need to call for medevac and other services and it could really cause some issues. I bet the Ham operators are busy right now.
Maybe the should keep a hot backup in orbit? Yes I know that would be expensive.
Safety mode? (Score:2)
The satellite went into safety mode and moved from pointing to the earth to pointing to the sun.
Why on earth is this what it does when it goes into safety mode? How is that supposed to help the problem/prevent it from becoming worse?
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From the article comments:
Note that the satellite is pointing in the wrong direction on purpose. This is standard procedure to prevent a malfunctioning satellite from interfering with other services.
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Safety for external functions. It isn't so much designed to help the satellite's problem as to prevent other services from being disrupted.
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Safety means safety for the life of the satellite, i.e. you give up on the mission and try to keep the satellite alive until someone can diagnose and fix the original problem.
If you lose attitude control (or lose track of your orientation) you need to orient the spacecraft to get power with no a priori knowledge of your orientation. At Geosyncrhonous altitude, the Earth is only 18.75 degrees wide, and it is surprisingly difficult to find by searching, and while you are searching, you likely have no power fr
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Oh goodie! (Score:2)
An opportunity to slander our norther neighbors without retribution. :)
Canadians can't play hockey! Canadian beer tastes like pee! Tree sap is not mothers milk!
hahahaha naner naner naner. :P
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More a boat Canadian raising (Score:2)
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Man parts of Canada are just the beautiful but it is such a tragic county.
Canada could have had American know how, French culture, and British government.
Instead it got American culture, British know how, and French government.
Re:Oh goodie! (Score:5, Funny)
Sticks and stones may break our bones, but our health care at least is free!
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You see, it's the northern part of Canada (furthest from you) which has no internet. Between them and you is southern Canada, who happens to still have internet, as well as an overly-extreme pride for hockey and beer. Of course, I wouldn't expect an American to comprehend his relative geographical location :)
Northern Canada != Canada (Score:5, Informative)
WOW bad headling and BAD summary (Score:5, Informative)
Should probably read....
Remote communities in Canada's far north without internet.
Any major populated area connected by land line will not be impacted... In fact I would argue that nothing larger than a "Town" is likely impacted impacted.
Rogue Satellite (Score:5, Funny)
Anik F2 satellite experienced an attitude control issue
Great, so now we have self-aware machines with personality disorders orbiting us? Who's gonna capitalize on the budding satellite anger-management industry?
Spin control (Score:2)
Rocket science: "attitude"
Plain English: "which way it's pointing"
Rocket science: "Anik F2 satellite experienced an attitude control issue"
Plain English: "Anik F2 satellite started spinning out of control"
Single point of failure? (Score:2)
it takes time to point to a other satelite and the (Score:2)
it takes time to point to a other satellite and then you have reconfigure all the radios to the TP's on a differnt satellite.
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A dedicated satellite isn't "a little redundancy". Reasonable levels of redundancy are already built into the satellite still up there awaiting repairs, as well as built into planes being flown across barren territory.
The possibility of it having a chance to save a single life will never justify that kind of expense. Even if you knew an MP would certainly lose their life, few wouldn't balk at the half billion dollar price tag of saving them. With that kind of money you can have a 100% certainty to save n
That's what radio is for. (Score:3)
If you want reliable backup comms in the wilderness you use radio.
The reliance on phones and internet is convenient, but if you can afford those you can afford radio gear and spend some time learning how to use it.
Amateur radio operators were the original nerds long before computers existed.
http://www.rac.ca/ [www.rac.ca]
http://www.arrl.org/ [arrl.org]
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With... (Score:2)
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I would just use a second satellite as a backup. It is still radio you know. Besides, what better place to place an antenna in than in space?
Shaw Broadcast Services uses Anik F2 so cable (Score:2)
Shaw Broadcast Services uses Anik F2 so cable customs tv may be missing out out on channels and maybe US NHL CENTER ICE customs will not be able to get games on Canada channels.
Canada should use the Australian Outback solution (Score:2)
Canada has lot's of hills and Mountains that get i (Score:2)
Canada has lot's of hills and Mountains that get it the way.
Rogers Sports net SD / HD / NHL HD feeds are on F2 (Score:2)
http://www.shawbroadcast.ca/docs/signal_lists/hd_signal_list_transport_oct11_e.pdf [shawbroadcast.ca]
The NHL is big in Canada so like the feeds will have to move and other channels may get kicked off air.
I know that iN DEMAND uses shaw broadcast to get the feeds for the CBC, TSN, rogers sports net games.
900,000 subscribers affected.. (Score:2)
Also note that Shaw Direct (Formerly Starchoice) uses Annik K2 for half of its channels.
People really hope they have a solution before the first game of the season, which is tonight. They will lose many subscribers due to this, no doubt about it.
US Center Ice subscribers may miss out on games (Score:2)
From Canadian tv channels.
right now no
Sportsnet Vancouver Canucks SD
Sportsnet Senators SD
CBC Charlottetown SD
CBC Regina SD
CBC Toronto HD
WGN HD (Canadian feed same as WGN 9 OTA)
All Rogers sports NET HD but Sports net east HD.
Rogers Sports net one HD
TSN 1 HD
TSN 2 HD
other as well.
Network statistics ... (Score:2)
If you want to see what living with satellite communications is like, KNet has some detailed statistics and news:
http://tech.knet.on.ca/ [knet.on.ca]
It looks like they use a different satellite, but the News section discusses the sorts of things that affect service and if you scroll down the list you'll find traffic data for communities served by satellite.
Outages are common, and can be caused by anything from the town's electrical generators going down to the nature of the satellite's orbit.
I predict a mini population spike in 9 months (Score:2)
Much like the ones that have occurred in major blackouts. Can't watch porn on the internet then hell lets do the real thing!
Re:How 1960s (Score:5, Funny)
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Fiber to remote communities difficult (Score:2)
From what I understand, northern Canada is somewhat remote. In fact, I understand there to be limited road access above the 75th parallel in much of the country. I would posit that it would be unfeasibly expensive to lay and maintain fiber cable out through difficult a media (permafrost) to support communities that number in the dozens.
Satellites seem to me to offer the best way to connect small settlements spread out across millions of square miles of the Canadian back country.
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Check your atlas. I'm pretty sure there are no roads above the 75th parallel because there is a dearth of land up there upon which to build roads. :-) I think you mean 55th parallel, which would be accurate.
Sometimes I would just kill for a way to revise my slashdot comments. About 3 minutes after I posted, I did some googling and found that the 60th parallel [wikipedia.org] separates the lower Canadian provinces from NWT, Yukon, and Nunavut.
Don't know where the long-distance roads stop, though. I was just in Quebec and remember looking at a road atlas to see how far north the road from Chicoutimi reached -- for some reason, the 75th stuck in my head. Don't know why, though...
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Not to mention that you'd have to deal with seasonal melting and freezing of muskeg and swamps and lakes.
Not going to happen any time soon.
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Simple: economics. It costs money to support and maintain. In a country as large as Canada there's a lot of infrastructure (rail, roads, air traffic, mail, and in some cases telephone) that is paid or subsized by the federal (or provincial) government. For instance, there's a a beautifully maintained ~200km highway stretch between Barrie and Sudbury (Ontario) with very little in between. You have very limited wireless coverage as well (not even talking cell phones here, just old-fashioned radio/CB), imp
Re:How 1960s (Score:5, Funny)
Won't work. Hikers in the Canadian wilderness have long carried a piece of fiber optic cable with them. If they get lost, they just bury the cable and hitch a ride back when the backhoe comes to dig it up.
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Just bring fiber to the North, damn it.
No need for fiber. I believe copper is a superconductor at those temperatures.
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Erm... actually, Canada's been a pretty good sport about our jokes. We don't have anything held back to say!
However, when France loses it's internet connection....
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Who has been holding back on French jokes?
They are not good sports, but who the fuck cares? What are they going to do?
Q: What did the mayor of Paris say to the general at the front to of the German armored columns rolling into town?
A: Table for 150,000 misuer.?
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I get really tired of this shit.
WWI deaths by number and percent of population*:
WWII deaths by number and percent of population:
Bear in mind that the French deaths in WWII all occurred in the European theatre, while those of the US occurred in both Europe and Asia. I think it is fair to say that the French did their fair share of fighting and dying in both wars.
*from Wikipedia
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The Soviet Union had it worse and still they preferred to endure cold, hunger and death before surrendering to the enemy. Point in question: Leningrad/St. Petersburg as well as Stalingrad/Volgograd. Read what happened there and you will realize that the French, with the clear exception of the partisans, acted like freaking cowards.
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The French (and Brits) had monumentally incompetent leadership in WWI. General Pershing deserves much credit for refusing to use American troops as replacement cannon fodder for the frogs and brits. Between Napoleon and WWI balls were bred out of the French population and culture.
I'm betting most of the French deaths in WWII were fighting _for_ the Axis or civilians killed in bombing raids. In ether case the fact remains they were unable to defend their own country from a similarly sized nation.
More ba
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Not all that far from the truth. About 90% of the population lives within 160km of the US border. [cia.gov] The three territories make up 39% of the area of Canada, but only 0.3% of the population.
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They use penguins on hamster wheels. Tell your friends- they'll be impressed by how smart you are.