NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] A Ridiculous Failure of Critical Infrastructure
----- Forwarded message from Dave Farber <dave@farber.net> ----- Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2009 15:10:04 -0500 From: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net> Subject: [IP] A Ridiculous Failure of Critical Infrastructure Reply-To: dave@farber.net To: ip <ip@v2.listbox.com> Begin forwarded message: > From: "Atkinson, Robert" <rca53@COLUMBIA.EDU> > Date: December 1, 2009 2:54:52 PM EST > To: CYBERTELECOM-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM > Subject: Re: A Ridiculous Failure of Critical Infrastructure > Reply-To: Telecom Regulation & the Internet > <CYBERTELECOM-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM> > > This is the sort of event that can start the dominoes falling toward > "more regulation." Network outages that effectively strand individuals > (read "voters") for any length of time is the one thing that politicians > and regulators can understand and react to, much more readily than vague > network neutrality, competition, technology or pricing issues. Network > outages affect constituents immediately and obviously so politicians and > regulators will feel compelled to "do something." This instance won't > be a triggering event but if similar outages on a "critical > infrastructure" occur on a regular basis and make the news, pressure > will grow and grandstanding politicians will latch onto "saving the > internet" as a great issue. Service providers screw up like this at > their own peril. > > Bob > > > On 12/1/09 2:54 AM, "Matt Larsen - Lists" <lists@MANAGEISP.COM> wrote: > > Some kind of combination of failure between Charter and Qwest has left > tens of thousands of people in Nebraska without Internet and has > disrupted the Internet and phone services for thousands more. Right > now, the outage is going on 12 hours and there is no ETA for repair in > sight. > > The word coming down is that the outage is on a Qwest fiber, but it > looks to me like both parties should be on the hot seat for not having > the ability to route around the problem. There was a four hour > outage > on Charter a week ago that was caused by a fiber cut in Gothenburg, > Nebraska. > That one killed everything west of the cut, but it was small potatoes > compared to this one. Is this truly the level of performance that we > can expect from our major Internet backbone providers? It took me > about 10 seconds to re-route my traffic to a backup provider - you > would > think that a couple of multimillion dollar companies would be able to > sort out a problem of this nature in a reasonable amount of time. The > small CLEC that I use for my backup connection had enough capacity to > route around the problem and was even able to lend me a little bit > after > 5pm when the traffic on their network (mostly businesses) dropped off. > It isn't rocket science to figure out how to route around an outage. > > Almost as frustrating is that there was NO news about the outages > anywhere except on the social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter). > One TV station in Hastings, NE put up a short story on their website, > but I got more news from the tweets and FB posts that people where > posting from their cell phones than I did from anywhere else. None of > the network outage sites have any news about this. > > Could this be a harbinger of things to come? I am feeling pretty > thankful right now that I have a choice in backbone providers and that I > kept a second one. Diversity is a good thing, and this is a great > example of why we need competition and multiple options for Internet. > > Matt Larsen > vistabeam.com ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ----- End forwarded message -----