On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 11:17:42 +1200 Shane wrote: > References: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Mime-Version: 1.0 > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Nick Rout wrote: > > >On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 09:51:46 +1200 > >Paul Swafford wrote: > > > > > > > >>First .. this list has been a bit quiet lately.. > >> > >>Second .. As it seems Telecom is not directly responsible for this > >>"massive" outage, who is? More importantly what level of public > >>liability are they accountable for? > >> > >>Third .. why isn't there another Internet access method - heck even bi > >>directional satellite would serve. > >> > >> > The original arpnet wasn't the modern internet either. Back in the day > I used to connect to it via fido net which was a string of computers, > connectd to modems which dialled each other and passed information > around. The idea was you called your neighbours who called their > neighbours who called ... and eventually information travelled. I could > get an email from chch to the USA and back in 24 hours, all via modem > and local phone calls routing information. > > Back in the day miltiary / educational / govt facilitys had their own > cables for their lans but they still connected via telephone between > different LANS. There wasn't much backbone network cabling (inter lan / > wan / man type cabling) other than telephone cabling then. These users > could use some satellite, radio packet, line of site technologies but > they were pretty sparse as well and tended to be on a similar machine to > radio, tv traffic ... with differing degrees of latency and availablity. > > Arpnet was designed to alloow routing to happen in various ways when > routers, computers and switches ... went down. The reason the Internet > didn't re-route the other day is that we are not paying our ISPs to be > part of the internet but we are paying them to be our gateway to the > internet. The reason your internet connection broke is that your node > (ie computer) only has a single connection to the major part of the > internet. In order for you to get arpnet like access and failover to the > internet your node must have multiple connections to the internet. ISPs > dont cooperate together. If they did, then telcom traffic would have > failed over to telstras lines and headed out the door to the big wide > world. Alternatively we could have failed over to ihugs satellite, > vodaphone satelites, tv nz satellites, military satelites, .... and so > on and so on and so on. This fail over can still happen, if the ISPs > bury their pride and co-operate. If my xtra ADSL line fail I have dial > up to paradise, line of sight to telstras backbone via point to point > receivers on the hills, a link to a satellite dish via phoning a friend > on the telephone, ... and I am still in business. > > The arpnet system did not, and does not, guarentee instantaneous fail > over in every case. It definitely does not guarentee bandwidth. Routes > take time to reset from what was working to finding an alternative. > Different transmission methods have different latencys and when > bandwidth is reduced by hardware failure then higher prioirty traffic > will block out lower priority traffic as more pressure is put on the > remaining connections. > > <tongue in cheek> > <sly question>My question is this .... what failed? The internet or your > node on the internet? </sly question> > If the answer is your node on the internet then what are you doing to > continue to allow your node to be a productive part of the internet and > allow arpnet like ability to failover? > </ tongue in cheek> > > Thus endith the old mans lesson for the day.
Shane, that was an excellent post, thanks a lot. However I still think that this outage shows major failings somewhere. I am not just talking about IP traffic. All sorts of traffic failed, landline, mobile, internet, EFTPOS. It seems odd that one cable outage (or was it two) should bring large parts of the economy to a standstill. Even if computer networking did not exist or rely so heavily on telecom, the difficulties faced in other spheres were considerable. I accept that there probably are other "routes" on the voice network, and that once traffic has to be prioritised then some services will be reduced or cut. However there seemed to be just too many adverse consequences from this cable break to be able to say that telecom have anywhere near enough redundancy in their system. Another flaw seems to have shown up, as explained by Jim, authentication to non-xtra isp's was disturbed because radius services (ie authentication) are based in auckland for many isp's and once the IP to auckland was down no one could get online even though (once authenticated) the rest of the network was apparently working. Now I don't expect an ISP to mirror its radius servers on every street corner, but it seems that both the ISP's and telecom are putting an awful lot of eggs going into an awfully small number of baskets! > > > > > > -- > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. > Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.7.10/25 - Release Date: 21/06/2005 -- Nick Rout
