Shetland cut off from the outside world

[Dos_Box]

It seems that both major comms cables to Shetland have been severed - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-63326102.amp

Our very own @ZeroHour resides there and I've sent him a text to see how it's going as it seems to be the only way any message 'may' get through.

On the other hand, this may be a valuble lesson in just how much a total outage for a protracted period will affect modern life without the aid of a natural disaster.

Edited October 20, 2022 by Dos_Box

[TechMonkey]

Have we checked those tricky Scandinavian's haven't started kicking off again? Anyone checked for long boats?

[supportman]

Lets hope he takes the time to sort out the sites SSL certificate

[southhamster]

Hmm. Maybe time to start looking at Starlink/satellite. Makes you realise how fragile the internet can be.

[MatthewL]

They have been very unlucky with both cables been broken.

 

For the majority inland most will probably never experience unless something major happens to exchange or a major head end in the VM network.

 

Now the exception for this is Hull on the KCom network, there is diverse routing and now other providers are available in the city but in the last 2 years KCom in Hull has been hit by 2 major outages which I've personally experienced, one been the other week with a City Fibre break at Wetherby and then about 2 years ago there similar somewhere that way on as well which took down half of the network if not all in some instances.

 

For me technology does break, if it happens nice to have a bit of downtime from it all personally.

[supportman]

Pretty much the whole point of the internet in the first place was to build a resilient network that could handle broken nodes.

 

I find it weird that governments (or comms companies) think it's OK to rely on 2 single cables to supply an entire island. Not great for resiliance!

[elsiegee40]

We were at Uluru (central Australia) when a similar thing happened.

 

There was one cable linking central Australia to the rest of the world and a digger broke it somewhere near Adelaide.

 

No cash machines, no card payment, no internet, no phones for 24 hours.

[DalekSec]

No cash machines, no card payment, no internet, no phones for 24 hours.

 

Sounds like a normal day in Yeovil

[dmj]

I find it weird that governments (or comms companies) think it's OK to rely on 2 single cables to supply an entire island. Not great for resiliance!

 

How many small towns with similar populations have more than that?

[TechMonkey]

Pretty much the whole point of the internet in the first place was to build a resilient network that could handle broken nodes.

 

I find it weird that governments (or comms companies) think it's OK to rely on 2 single cables to supply an entire island. Not great for resiliance!

 

Surely 2 cables is resilience? From what I read I thought they were completely separate cables coming into the island via different routes.

[southhamster]

TBF it's a bit easier to fix a broken fibre on land, although that doesn't always stop openreach taking ages.But it does surprise me there's no backup satellite link. I bet radio ham operators are busy there!

[Dos_Box]

FYI, @ZeroHour managed to grab a satellite connection late yesterday afternoon (not Starlink) and tells us he thinks they will get some kind of (partial) connection back on Saturday, fingers crossed.

[Jawloms]

I just hope they don't lose Radio 4 for three days in a row, that'll panic them!

[dmj]

I just hope they don't lose Radio 4 for three days in a row, that'll panic them!

 

They would miss a couple of chancellors a new PM and a few home secretaries in that time.

[Dos_Box]

They would miss a couple of chancellors a new PM and a few home secretaries in that time.

 

I think we should convince them they have been in some kind of Brigadoon situation. We'll have a new govt and everything by the time they get comms back fully

[network41]

Back online now

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-63337473