Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Jean-Francois Mezei]

On 2017-10-10 00:47, Sean Donelan wrote:
> 
> The Puerto Rico government has posted threee maps of cellular coverage and 
> GPS coordinates of Cells on Wheels (COWs) in service.
> 
> http://www.status.pr/Maps/
> 
> It still looks grim in Puerto Ricofrom a telecommunications perspective. 

I found the coverage maps to be better than I would have expected.

> Claro, the ILEC but second in terms of mobile phone marketshare behind 
> AT,

Do AT and T_Mobile have much actual infrastructure or do they tend to
roam or network share with Claro? From what I read, Sprint/Verizon ride
on the  Open Mobile network as it is the only one still providing CDMA
signal.

Of course a round coverage dot on the map which provide CDMA is of
little use to those who have GSM phones (and vice versa).  (I guess LTE
roaming between Open Mobile and the GSM guys would work?)




> has started to more fully explain what "restored" means, and that 
> it doesn't mean everything as before the hurricane.  It is minimum 
> telecommunications.

I would expect that priority is in expanding coverage, not capacity.
Light up the one tower at the top of the hill with sub 1ghz band to have
farthest reach. But that means lots of people on same tower, hence lower
capacity per person.

The maps still show lots of individual round circles.



>  Claro has been more willing to talk about the 
> situation in Puerto Rico, which is why I've referencing Claro a lot more 
> than other carriers.

If AT and T_Mobile rely a lot of Claro, this could explain a lot why
Claro is the one speaking out since it is its radios/antennae that are
being lighted up and it would be the one with the info on work/progress.

(and I suspect AT and T-Mo would provide crews to helop Claro restore
basic service first).

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Wayne Bouchard]

Please note that there is another looming problem with restoration of
services generally (not just telecommunications). The key here is the
power grid.

>From what I have read, a great deal of the operating infrastructure is
operating on backup generator. These generators are not meant for this
duty cycle. (Recall that most units are sized such that they will be
providing ~70% output if not higher and thus will run hard.) It will
not be long before some of them begin to fail.

Even if they can keep running for the longer term, they need to be
shut down every so many hours for service (oil change, etc.) Depending
on the unit, that may be measured in the hundreds of hours. One week
is 168 hours. One month is 720 hours. Fail to do this and the unit
evntually becomes a big pile of scrap metal. Any facility, beit a
pumping station, hospital, airport, cell tower, central office, or
sewage plant that must rely on generators for the foreseeable future
must consider this.


On Tue, Oct 10, 2017 at 12:47:21AM -0400, Sean Donelan wrote:
> 
> The Puerto Rico government has posted threee maps of cellular coverage and 
> GPS coordinates of Cells on Wheels (COWs) in service.
> 
> http://www.status.pr/Maps/
> 
> It still looks grim in Puerto Ricofrom a telecommunications perspective. 
> Its will be an interesting after-action study.  Other than "it was a 
> hurricane," I haven't gotten a good idea why so much of the 
> telecommunications network failed and backups still aren't working more 
> than 2 weeks later.
> 
> Claro, the ILEC but second in terms of mobile phone marketshare behind 
> AT, has started to more fully explain what "restored" means, and that 
> it doesn't mean everything as before the hurricane.  It is minimum 
> telecommunications.  Claro has been more willing to talk about the 
> situation in Puerto Rico, which is why I've referencing Claro a lot more 
> than other carriers.
> 
> This is a google translate of an interview from spanish.
> 
> "It is important to clarify that the radio bases put into service to date, 
> offer the same voice and data services as before the impact of the 
> Hurricane. In other words, if the base radio is 4GLTE, that is the service 
> it will offer. The other two components that influence the customer 
> experience are the voice and data plan and the equipment of each user."
> 
> "The network is also open to third-party customers as part of our 
> commitment to connect everyone in the country. In fact, over a quarter of 
> a million customers from other providers have connected daily to the Claro 
> network. When these customers connect to our network they only have voice 
> service as stipulated in the roaming agreement with the other providers.
> As for the fixed network, this morning the service was restored in the 
> central offices (OC) of Fajardo and Humacao, whose optical fibers had been 
> affected by the destruction of Hurricane Maria. In this way already have 
> fixed voice, internet and long distance services in these municipalities: 
> Ceiba, Fajardo, Luquillo, Humacao, Naguabo and Yabucoa. Already a total of 
> 57 municipalities have all 3 services. It is possible that some customers 
> of Claro served by these OCs do not have internet. This is possible as 
> there could be cables and posts broken and / or VRADs without AEE 
> service."
> 
> https://www.metro.pr/pr/noticias/2017/10/06/senal-claro-esta-ya-accesible-34-municipios.html

---
Wayne Bouchard
w...@typo.org
Network Dude
http://www.typo.org/~web/

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

The Puerto Rico government has posted threee maps of cellular coverage and 
GPS coordinates of Cells on Wheels (COWs) in service.


http://www.status.pr/Maps/

It still looks grim in Puerto Ricofrom a telecommunications perspective. 
Its will be an interesting after-action study.  Other than "it was a 
hurricane," I haven't gotten a good idea why so much of the 
telecommunications network failed and backups still aren't working more 
than 2 weeks later.


Claro, the ILEC but second in terms of mobile phone marketshare behind 
AT, has started to more fully explain what "restored" means, and that 
it doesn't mean everything as before the hurricane.  It is minimum 
telecommunications.  Claro has been more willing to talk about the 
situation in Puerto Rico, which is why I've referencing Claro a lot more 
than other carriers.


This is a google translate of an interview from spanish.

"It is important to clarify that the radio bases put into service to date, 
offer the same voice and data services as before the impact of the 
Hurricane. In other words, if the base radio is 4GLTE, that is the service 
it will offer. The other two components that influence the customer 
experience are the voice and data plan and the equipment of each user."


"The network is also open to third-party customers as part of our 
commitment to connect everyone in the country. In fact, over a quarter of 
a million customers from other providers have connected daily to the Claro 
network. When these customers connect to our network they only have voice 
service as stipulated in the roaming agreement with the other providers.
As for the fixed network, this morning the service was restored in the 
central offices (OC) of Fajardo and Humacao, whose optical fibers had been 
affected by the destruction of Hurricane Maria. In this way already have 
fixed voice, internet and long distance services in these municipalities: 
Ceiba, Fajardo, Luquillo, Humacao, Naguabo and Yabucoa. Already a total of 
57 municipalities have all 3 services. It is possible that some customers 
of Claro served by these OCs do not have internet. This is possible as 
there could be cables and posts broken and / or VRADs without AEE 
service."


https://www.metro.pr/pr/noticias/2017/10/06/senal-claro-esta-ya-accesible-34-municipios.html

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Mike Hammett]

>From a WISP in USVI

A quick perspective from the US Virgin Islands of how the carriers have fared / 
performed:

AT = had a couple towers with some cell coverage after Irma and Maria.  A 
testament to good engineering at the tower, and redundancy in their network 
design.  Primarily microwave backhaul, but leasing some fiber from the ILEC 
named Viya.  AT has a major undersea cable station and POP on STT in downtown 
Charlotte Amalie.  They have been making progress fixing their network, STX is 
over 50% fixed 2 weeks after Maria.  75% market share

Sprint = 100% down for the 3+ weeks after Irma.  They have a single point of 
failure, relying on 10ft dishes to shoot 20-50 miles, from STT to Puerto Rico.  
These cheap bastards wouldn’t buy a backup connection from Viya or Broadband 
VI.  I have called them out to the PSC.  Still weeks away from anything 
working.  Most of their customers can roam on Viya’s cell  network.  15% market 
share and rapidly declining.

Viya = Celluar = 30-50% up, Celluar  = 10% market share.  Rolling out LTE 
upgrade.
Cable TV/Phone/Internet = 10% up, 75% market share, have a long road to 
recovery.  Have to wait for power company poles to be replaced / fixed before 
they can repair their badly damaged plant.

Broadband VI = WISP = 50% AP's up, 15% of customers.  Got up quickly after 
Irma, STX stayed up, STT had backhaul to every major tower repaired in 5 days.  
After Maria 100% down.  Had to re-aim / repair every major tower on STX, and 
most of STT.  Moving focus from backhaul to repairing AP’s next week.  Tower by 
tower, with installers / subs going to customers in that area (who have power, 
almost all via generator).  In the middle of a Mikrotik 2 Cambium 450 forklift 
upgrade.  Impressive survival rate for Cambium AP’s, and Ceragon IP-20.  
 
viNGN = Government fiber middle-mile, lost 90% of their drops because there 
were aerial.

I am off to guide the FEMA re-fuelers to a remote tower which ran out of fuel 
last night. 
There have been some lessons learned.  I will compile a report in the next few 
weeks.  

Mike Meluskey
CTO and Founder
Broadband VI



-
Mike Hammett
Intelligent Computing Solutions
http://www.ics-il.com

Midwest-IX
http://www.midwest-ix.com

- Original Message -
From: Javier J <jav...@advancedmachines.us>
To: Jean-Francois Mezei <jfmezei_na...@vaxination.ca>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Sent: Sat, 07 Oct 2017 03:02:46 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

@ Jean

Interesting stuff. Please keep this thread updated with info on that
initiative.

On Fri, Oct 6, 2017 at 9:55 PM, Jean-Francois Mezei <
jfmezei_na...@vaxination.ca> wrote:

> I have not ound the official announcements, but the press is reporting
> that the FCC has granted Google rights to fly 30 of its "Loon" high
> altitude ballons to provide cellular cervice in Puerto Rico for up to 6
> months.
>
> (From my readings, there are glorified relays of ground based signals
> (which I assume some antennas have to be oriented to face up towards the
> balloons).
>
> The Loon will use spectrum allocated to the carriers they relay (and got
> their OK)
>
> Altitude 20km. (so not sure they need 30 balloons, 1 probably suffices
> to cover all of PR).
>
> I suspect more concrete info will be coming.
>

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Javier J]

@ Jean

Interesting stuff. Please keep this thread updated with info on that
initiative.

On Fri, Oct 6, 2017 at 9:55 PM, Jean-Francois Mezei <
jfmezei_na...@vaxination.ca> wrote:

> I have not ound the official announcements, but the press is reporting
> that the FCC has granted Google rights to fly 30 of its "Loon" high
> altitude ballons to provide cellular cervice in Puerto Rico for up to 6
> months.
>
> (From my readings, there are glorified relays of ground based signals
> (which I assume some antennas have to be oriented to face up towards the
> balloons).
>
> The Loon will use spectrum allocated to the carriers they relay (and got
> their OK)
>
> Altitude 20km. (so not sure they need 30 balloons, 1 probably suffices
> to cover all of PR).
>
> I suspect more concrete info will be coming.
>

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Jean-Francois Mezei]

I have not ound the official announcements, but the press is reporting
that the FCC has granted Google rights to fly 30 of its "Loon" high
altitude ballons to provide cellular cervice in Puerto Rico for up to 6
months.

(From my readings, there are glorified relays of ground based signals
(which I assume some antennas have to be oriented to face up towards the
balloons).

The Loon will use spectrum allocated to the carriers they relay (and got
their OK)

Altitude 20km. (so not sure they need 30 balloons, 1 probably suffices
to cover all of PR).

I suspect more concrete info will be coming.

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

In addition to government and carriers working on the large-scale 
infrastructure to restore telecommunications in Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin 
Islands and other Caribbean islands; I've found the following 
non-government organizations with people on the ground in the disaster 
areas working on communications needed emergency and relief efforts.


I've limited this list to those groups I've been able to confirm on the 
ground response, not just a press release; and to the best of my ability 
to verify are legitimate organizations.  If you know of other 
non-governmental organizations with on-the-ground teams restoring 
telecommunications in PR or USVI or other Caribbean islands, let me know.




American Red Cross: mobile satellite stations at red cross shelters
https://www.redcross.org/ns/apology/disaster_homepage.html


ARRL Puerto Rico: Multiple communication efforts in Puerto Rico and U.S. 
Virigin islands in cooperation with Red Cross and government 
organizations.

http://www.arrl.org/


Global DIRT: installing Vanu cellular terminals and GATR satellite dishes 
in the US Virgin Islands and Vieques, PR.

http://globaldirt.org/


Information Technology Disaster Resource Center: installing voice and wifi 
networks in remote parts of puerto rico.

https://www.itdrc.org/


NetHope: providing connectivity services to the response community and 
affected communities in puerto rico

https://nethope.org/

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

On Thu, 5 Oct 2017, Jean-Francois Mezei wrote:

Statistics may look bad showing 100,000 without power. But if it is a
single break by a branch it is easy to fix compared to having 1000
breaks by 1000 branches. So again, statistics don't give the full story
on the real extent of damage.


The FCC is a passive entity collecting only the outage details service 
providers choose to voluntarily share.  Data about cell sites is from the 
Wireless Resiliency Cooperative Framework and any other wireless carriers 
which choose to provide data.


https://www.fcc.gov/wireless-resiliency-cooperative-framework

https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/60001707365.pdf

This is the data collected by DIRS:

Wireline Carriers
  CLLI code of switches/STPs that are out
  Names of PSAPs that are out
  Estimated users out of service
  Major facilities out of service (> 192 DS3)
  Very short status description of the effects of event (e.g., “No major 
equipment out”)


Wireless Carriers
  CLLI code of MSCs/STPs that are out
  Total cell sites out in disaster area
  Very short status description

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Mike Hammett]

Broadcast towers that you ruled out often have cell companies on them. 
Buildings often have cell sites on them. DAS really isn't all that common. 

There's usually two, three, four providers on a given tower. My ASR search of 
Arecibo, PR gives me 19 constructed. Six of them are on known multi-tenant 
tower owners. 

All towers over 200' and some towers meeting various other requirements must be 
listed in ASR. The tower companies usually list many of them in ASR, but not 
always. 

Crown Castle has 299 sites in Puerto Rico and lists 196 "alternative" sites. 
These are likely options on various retail rooftops, open land, etc. 
American Tower lists 175 sites with about 2/3 of them being typical towers and 
the other third being random other things that may or may not be developed. 
SBA lists 97 sites. 
PTI lists 19 sites. 
There are likely other tower companies down there as well. My AT Towers login 
isn't working and they appear to have their own sites down there. 


It probably adds up with some margin of error. 






- 
Mike Hammett 
Intelligent Computing Solutions 

Midwest Internet Exchange 

The Brothers WISP 

- Original Message -

From: "Jean-Francois Mezei" <jfmezei_na...@vaxination.ca> 
To: nanog@nanog.org 
Sent: Thursday, October 5, 2017 4:50:39 PM 
Subject: Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of 

got curious about the FCC's definition of "cell site" in the Maria 
outages reports in Puerto Rico. 



In the Oct 4 report: Arecibo is reported as having 68 cell sites served, 
65 being out. (95.2% outage) 


The FCC has an "ASR" (Antenna Structure Registration) search for cell 
sites, and this points to actual masts (which I assume need some permit 
above certain height). 

For ARECIBO, there are 31 entries, 
1 dismantled, 
4 granted 
2 cancelled 

That leaves 24 "constructed". 

These registrations do not mention which carrier(s) uses the mast. And 
include some owners such as Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation which 
isn't likiely being used for cellular. 

For all of Puerto Rico, it reports 930 ASR registrations. (haven't done 
the parsing to see how many are "Constructed" vs Cancelled, granted, 
dismantled). Lets assume 900 for sake of discussion. 


So the ~1600 quoted by another organisation would have to include more 
than just registered antenna masts. 

Except for water towers, what other structures would be amenable to 
having multiple carrier's antennas? 

What is also not clear from such statistics is the fact you could have a 
town with an high antenna broadcasting 850 to the whole area, and then 
lots of DAS antennas at telephone pole height in the town at 1900 or 1700. 

Having the 850 up and running at the top of the hill might cover the 
whole town, even if it would represent only 1 of say 50 cell sites in 
the area. 


Similarly, covering a windy road in a canyon might be done with lots of 
DAS anetnnas on telephone poles along the way. They may all be down, but 
would normally serve 0 population, so is this number of "down" antennas 
relevant? 


During the 1998 ce storm in Québec, Hydro Québec was overwhelmed and 
asked cities to identify priority sites inside their territories. 

It's fancy "point to where the break is based on where everyone reports 
an outage" software was useless because many breaks continued to happen 
after power had been lost. 

So it had to start from where there was power and work its way, fixing 
breaks along the line towards those priority sites. (and once done, fan 
out from there to power the non priority areas). 

In many rural areas, this involved planting new poles for long 
distances, rebuilding from scratch. (And only once the poles are up can 
the telco restring its wiring). 


What the media doesn't show after a disaster is what is still standing, 
what is still working. It could be that a large portion of telephone 
poles are still standing and intact and only require minor individual 
fixes. Or it could be that large swaths ave seen the poles toppled and 
new ones needed with new power and telco wiring done from scratch. 

Statistics may look bad showing 100,000 without power. But if it is a 
single break by a branch it is easy to fix compared to having 1000 
breaks by 1000 branches. So again, statistics don't give the full story 
on the real extent of damage. 

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Jean-Francois Mezei]

got curious about the FCC's definition of "cell site" in the Maria
outages reports in Puerto Rico.



In the Oct 4 report: Arecibo is reported as having 68 cell sites served,
65 being out. (95.2% outage)


The FCC has an "ASR" (Antenna Structure Registration) search for cell
sites, and this points to actual masts (which I assume need some permit
above certain height).

For ARECIBO, there are 31 entries,
1 dismantled,
4 granted
2 cancelled

That leaves 24 "constructed".

These registrations do not mention which carrier(s) uses the mast.  And
include some owners such as Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation which
isn't likiely being used for cellular.

For all of Puerto Rico, it reports 930 ASR registrations. (haven't done
the parsing to see how many are "Constructed" vs Cancelled, granted,
dismantled). Lets assume 900 for sake of discussion.


So the ~1600 quoted by another organisation would have to include more
than just registered antenna masts.

Except for water towers, what other structures would be amenable to
having multiple carrier's antennas?

What is also not clear from such statistics is the fact you could have a
town with an high antenna broadcasting 850 to the whole area, and then
lots of DAS antennas at telephone pole height in the town at 1900 or 1700.

Having the 850 up and running at the top of the hill might cover the
whole town, even if it would represent only 1 of say 50 cell sites in
the area.


Similarly, covering a windy road in a canyon might be done with lots of
DAS anetnnas on telephone poles along the way. They may all be down, but
would normally serve 0 population, so is this number of "down" antennas
relevant?


During the 1998 ce storm in Québec, Hydro Québec was overwhelmed and
asked cities to identify priority sites inside their territories.

It's fancy "point to where the break is based on where everyone reports
an outage" software was useless because many breaks continued to happen
after power had been lost.

So it had to start from where there was power and work its way, fixing
breaks along the line towards those priority sites. (and once done, fan
out from there to power the non priority areas).

In many rural areas, this involved planting new poles for long
distances, rebuilding from scratch. (And only once the poles are up can
the telco restring its wiring).


What the media doesn't show after a disaster is what is still standing,
what is still working.  It could be that a large portion of telephone
poles are still standing and intact and only require minor individual
fixes. Or it could be that large swaths ave seen the poles toppled and
new ones needed with new power and telco wiring done from scratch.

Statistics may look bad showing 100,000 without power. But if it is a
single break by a branch it is easy to fix compared to having 1000
breaks by 1000 branches. So again, statistics don't give the full story
on the real extent of damage.

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

Fatalities
  Puerto Rico: 34 storm related (last report Oct. 3)
   Media estimate at least 60 storm related deaths
   CDC mortatility rate for PR: average 80 deaths per day all
 causes
  U.S. Virgin Islands: 5 storm related (last report Oct. 3)
   30 deaths from all causes (natural causes, accidents,
 homicides)


Telecommunications
  Landline phones
 813,546 landlines (CIA World Factbook)

 ILEC (Claro) reports all Central Offices have voice, data and long
 distance working.  Estimate 40% of landline subscriber local loops are in
 service, mostly in metro areas.

 CLECs - no reports

 Cable - Liberty Cable PR is reporting some restoration of service in 
San Juan, Luquillo, Caguas, Levittown and Mayaguez areas.  LibertyPR is 
also providing free wifi in several public locations: Bahia Urbana in San 
Juandes, Luquillo offices, and accross from Purto Rico Coliseum in Hato 
Rey.


 Wireless mobile phones
 3,227,281 (CIA World Factbook)

 The Puerto Rico Telecommunications Regulary Board announced Electric 
Energy Authority (AEE) is providing a copy of its schedule of work areas 
so telecommunication companies can coordinate restoration work in the 
same areas. Electric restoration is in Bayamon, Toa Baja, Guaynabo and San 
Juan.


 The PRTRB announced 15 Cell on Wheels temporary cell sites will be 
installed in municipalities around the island by the end of October.  The 
PRTRB also confirmed these are supplementary emergency communications, and 
only provide voice and text service.  PRTRB estimates 60% coverage 
by the end of October and 100% before Christmas.


I still believe 100% does not means full capacity, only minimum 
services; but haven't found an authoritative statement.


 365 cell sites of 1619 are operational according to the PRTRB

 320 cell sites of 2644 are operational according to the FCC


  U.S. Virgin Islands
  35 cell sites of 106 are operational according to the FCC, 
essentially unchanged for the last week

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

After two weeks it appears the situation is stabilizing (not getting 
worse) on Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands. But recovery and logistics 
still seems very slow in both territories. A reminder, I am focusing on 
U.S. Territories, but other Caribbean islands are still recovering from 
Hurricane Irma and Maria.


Fatalities
  Puerto Rico: 16 storm related (last report Sept. 27)
   Media estimate at least 60 storm related deaths
   CDC mortatility rate for PR: average 80 deaths per day all 
causes

  U.S. Virgin Islands: 5 storm related (last report Oct. 3)
   30 deaths from all causes (natural causes, accidents, 
homicides)


Telecommunications

 Satellite phones
 Iridium reports over 2,000 non-military satellite phones active,
normally less than 10 non-military satellite phones active in
Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands area.  Iridium does not
release military usage.

 Landline phones
 813,546 landlines (CIA World Factbook)

 ILEC (Claro) reports all Central Offices have voice, data and long 
distance working.  Estimate 40% of landline subscriber local loops are in 
service, mostly in metro areas.


 CLECs - no reports

 Cable - all cable subscribers currently out of service

 Wireless mobile phones
 3,227,281 (CIA World Factbook)

 AT, Claro and T-Mobile announced extension of "open roaming" 
agreement between networks. I expect Sprint and Open Mobile will also 
extend their participation. Because open roaming makes accurate billing 
impossible, all carriers also announced they are waiving charges in Puerto 
Rico.


Puerto Rico Telecommunications Regulatory Board announced carriers 
have continued their joint restoration agreement. PRTRB expects 60% 
restoration of service by end of October, and 100% restoration of 
service before Christmas. I can not evaluate this forecast, but it seems 
aggressive; or the level of service will be the bare minimum and capacity 
will be very congested.


Claro reports it has at least one cell site active in 28 of 78 
municipalities, covering about 310,000 subscribers.  It may not be 
high-quality service, but its some service.


AT, Open Mobile, Sprint and T-Mobile have not disclosed how much of 
their networks are operating.  AT stated it is carrying 8 million 
calls and 4 million texts per day.


   FCC reports 2359 out of 2671 (88%) cell sites on Puerto Rico are out 
of service.


   PRTRB reports 1254 out of 1619 (77%) cell sites on Puerto Rico are out 
of service.


   I still do not understand the different statistics being reported by 
FCC and PRTRB or how they calculate their statistics.


   ROK Mobile and M2Catalyst, mobile metrics platforms, have published 
estimates of cell tower damage in Puerto Rico


 Claro: 14% cell sites operating
 Open Mobile: 8% cell sites operating
 Extended Network: 7% cell sites operating
 T-Mobile: 31% cell sites operating
 CLARO|TELCEL: 6% cell sites operating
 AT: 18% cell sites operating

   Percentages are affected by the denominators, i.e. share, which wasn't 
released. But it does show all carriers experienced a lot of damage.


http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/presently-over-86-of-cell-sites-in-puerto-rico-are-still-not-operating-in-aftermath-of-hurricane-maria-300530074.html

American Tower, Crown Castle and SBA, which collectively own many 
physical towers leased by mobile carriers on Puerto Rico, report little
material structural damage to the towers themselves. But there was 
substantial damage to carrier customer equipment on the towers and lack 
of electric power at almost all towers. Note: there are twitter photos of 
at least two collapsed towers, but I don't know those tower owners.


   U.S. Virgin Islands has almost no change (or getting slightly worse) in 
number of working cell sites during the last week.



 Internet Services

   647 IP networks out of 1205 are routed from Puerto Rico (RIPE)

   66 IP networks out of 70 are routed from U.S. Virgin Islands (RIPE)

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Javier J]

This is great to hear Nicholas.

On Mon, Oct 2, 2017 at 5:55 PM, Nicholas Harland  wrote:

> Hi Sean,
>
> Thank you for all of your updates. I am just catching up on them because I
> only recently got back from the virgin islands. I am one of those
> volunteers working in the USVI. St John specifically. We are building out a
> wireless network, and had our first hotspot up in Cruz Bay 4 days after
> Maria, with connectivity to NPS/FEMA/Red Cross/St John Rescue/Fire/Police
> just a few days after that.
>
> If there are technical minded and physically able bodied people would like
> to join the effort on St John, even just for a 1-2 week rotation, I would
> be happy to discuss what we need in terms of support and can make all
> arrangements on the island for housing etc. Getting some relief and fresh
> minds in would be a great help as our team is primarily St John residents
> who have been on the island through both hurricanes and have had to deal
> with their own personal situations while also trying to get internet up
> where it's needed.
>
> St John was hit directly by Irma, infrastructure was completely destroyed,
> but it's a very small island and so the humanitarian situation there is
> much more stable than Puerto Rico, but many of the resources that were
> assisting on STJ are now rightfully being diverted to SJU. You could expect
> to sleep somewhere that has a generator running overnight, have access to
> refrigeration/freezer (though cannot open fridge during day). Food/water
> situation is fine there, we have a beach volleyball game on Sundays, more
> generators are appearing on the island and some businesses are opening.
>
> Regards,
>
> Nick Harland
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 24, 2017 at 2:13 PM, Sean Donelan  wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 24 Sep 2017, Mike Hammett wrote:
> >
> >> There are a bunch of WISPs waiting to go rebuild, but waiting for the
> >> clearance to do so.
> >>
> >
> > I'm not sure what clearances they are waiting for.  If they are already
> in
> > Puerto Rico, self-sufficient, and respect curfews and other emergency
> > responders, they should be able to start local restoration and recovery
> > activities.
> >
> > Several local ISPs and communication providers have announced open public
> > WiFi hotspots outside their Puerto Rico offices during non-curfew hours.
> > I've also seen reports from individuals volunteering on the Virigin
> Islands
> > setting up internet access.
> >
> > If they are not already on the island, most Puerto Rican airports and
> > ports are still closed to non-military or relief activities. There is no
> > U.S. mail or freight service. Only one airport was open for limited
> > commercial flights.  They will need to bring everything neccessary to
> > support themselves, including food, water, shelter, etc.
> >
> > Managing volunteers who want to help is difficult in all disasters.
> Unless
> > they have training how to survive and take care of themselves in such a
> > situation, letting in outside well-meaning volunteers sometimes become
> > additional people who need to rescue.
> >
> > WISPs already on Puerto Rico or U.S. Virigin Islands, with resources for
> > recovery and restoration of communications; can contact the FCC
> Operations
> > Center, (202) 418-1122, fccoperationcen...@fcc.gov
> >
> > http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017
> > /db0920/DA-17-913A1.pdf
> >
> >
>

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Nicholas Harland]

Hi Sean,

Thank you for all of your updates. I am just catching up on them because I
only recently got back from the virgin islands. I am one of those
volunteers working in the USVI. St John specifically. We are building out a
wireless network, and had our first hotspot up in Cruz Bay 4 days after
Maria, with connectivity to NPS/FEMA/Red Cross/St John Rescue/Fire/Police
just a few days after that.

If there are technical minded and physically able bodied people would like
to join the effort on St John, even just for a 1-2 week rotation, I would
be happy to discuss what we need in terms of support and can make all
arrangements on the island for housing etc. Getting some relief and fresh
minds in would be a great help as our team is primarily St John residents
who have been on the island through both hurricanes and have had to deal
with their own personal situations while also trying to get internet up
where it's needed.

St John was hit directly by Irma, infrastructure was completely destroyed,
but it's a very small island and so the humanitarian situation there is
much more stable than Puerto Rico, but many of the resources that were
assisting on STJ are now rightfully being diverted to SJU. You could expect
to sleep somewhere that has a generator running overnight, have access to
refrigeration/freezer (though cannot open fridge during day). Food/water
situation is fine there, we have a beach volleyball game on Sundays, more
generators are appearing on the island and some businesses are opening.

Regards,

Nick Harland




On Sun, Sep 24, 2017 at 2:13 PM, Sean Donelan  wrote:

> On Sun, 24 Sep 2017, Mike Hammett wrote:
>
>> There are a bunch of WISPs waiting to go rebuild, but waiting for the
>> clearance to do so.
>>
>
> I'm not sure what clearances they are waiting for.  If they are already in
> Puerto Rico, self-sufficient, and respect curfews and other emergency
> responders, they should be able to start local restoration and recovery
> activities.
>
> Several local ISPs and communication providers have announced open public
> WiFi hotspots outside their Puerto Rico offices during non-curfew hours.
> I've also seen reports from individuals volunteering on the Virigin Islands
> setting up internet access.
>
> If they are not already on the island, most Puerto Rican airports and
> ports are still closed to non-military or relief activities. There is no
> U.S. mail or freight service. Only one airport was open for limited
> commercial flights.  They will need to bring everything neccessary to
> support themselves, including food, water, shelter, etc.
>
> Managing volunteers who want to help is difficult in all disasters. Unless
> they have training how to survive and take care of themselves in such a
> situation, letting in outside well-meaning volunteers sometimes become
> additional people who need to rescue.
>
> WISPs already on Puerto Rico or U.S. Virigin Islands, with resources for
> recovery and restoration of communications; can contact the FCC Operations
> Center, (202) 418-1122, fccoperationcen...@fcc.gov
>
> http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017
> /db0920/DA-17-913A1.pdf
>
>

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

On Mon, 2 Oct 2017, Sean Donelan wrote:

On Sun, 1 Oct 2017, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote:

I haven't seen any reports of a Teamster union refusal. I *have* seen
reports that only 10-30% of truck drivers are operational, because of
one or more of:


You're lucky. The bots have been pushing this very hard for several days. I 
don't know the local context or groups involved. There are at least two 
different groups


Snopes has published an article debunking this.  But bots are still 
pushing it.



Did Puerto Rico's Teamsters Union Go on Strike During Hurricane Maria 
Relief Efforts?
Reports that truck drivers are on strike in Puerto Rico are false -- 
Teamsters have asked mainland truckers to distribute supplies in the U.S. 
territory.


http://www.snopes.com/puerto-rico-teamsters/

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

On Sun, 1 Oct 2017, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote:

I haven't seen any reports of a Teamster union refusal. I *have* seen
reports that only 10-30% of truck drivers are operational, because of
one or more of:


You're lucky. The bots have been pushing this very hard for several days. 
I don't know the local context or groups involved. There are at least two 
different groups


1. Frente Amplio de Camioneros led by Victor Rodriguez

There are a couple of videos of interviews with Mr. Rodriguez. Like many 
people in Puerto Rico, Mr. Rodriguez is very upset. I don't know him well 
enough to understand if those videos were in the heat of the moment, or 
accurately reflect what's happening.



2. Union de Tronquistas de Puerto Rico local 901 afiliada I.B.T. led by 
Alexis Rodriguez


The AFL-CIO teamsters put out a statement today:
https://teamster.org/news/2017/10/teamsters-denounce-false-reports-work-stoppage-union-drivers-puerto-rico


Some of the re-posts are using a partial quote from Colonel Michael A. 
Valle, responsible for military logistics in Puerto Rico, that only 20% 
of the drivers are showing up for work. What the re-posts omitted is the 
rest of Col. Valle's quote:


“There should be zero blame on the drivers. They can’t get to work, the 
infrastructure is destroyed, they can’t get fuel themselves, and they 
can’t call us for help because there’s no communication. The will of the 
people of Puerto Rico is off the charts. The truck drivers have families 
to take care of, many of them have no food or water. They have to take 
care of their family’s needs before they go off to work, and once they do 
go, they can’t call home.”


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/us-military-on-puerto-rico-the-problem-is-distribution_us_59ce5906e4b0f3c468060dee


In a disaster situation, even simple problems become much more 
complicated.  Just as important during a disaster, don't attribute to 
malice what could be a misunderstanding or communication problem. People 
in the disaster zone are under a lot of stress.

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Jean-Francois Mezei]

On 2017-10-02 02:58, Wayne Bouchard wrote:
> Well, that's why recovery efforts in broad scale events like this have
> to go from a central point to pushing a perimiter farther and farther
> out. Create a habital, functional zone where workers can return to
> both to organize and recouperate and then go back out and push farther
> afield. 


Logic yes. But...

I have read stories of sick people in shelters dying because of lack of
electricity, lack of O2. Stories of FEMA sending water/food for only
half of population of a village.

This is where telecom plays a role.

If the shelter had comms, it could have told mayor "we need generator,
we need 5 tabks of O2 for sick people". Mayor could have sent request to
FEMA ASAP. My **guess** is that by the time FEMA got the requests, it
was too late  and people died.

In hindsight, every village should have been given a sat-phone BEFORE
the hurricane,

Ajit Pai complained about iPhone not having FM radio. But it is more
important for reverse communication from villages to headquarters/FEMA
to be able to transmit urgent needs, status reports, how much food/water
needed etc.

I suspect that if such comms had happened right off the bat, they would
have known that waiting for roads to be cleared wasn't sufficient and
taken a different philosophy for immediate help.

I think that disaster planners have made wrong assumptions about
cellular and terrestrial communications being robust enough to survive
cyclones.

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Wayne Bouchard]

Well, that's why recovery efforts in broad scale events like this have
to go from a central point to pushing a perimiter farther and farther
out. Create a habital, functional zone where workers can return to
both to organize and recouperate and then go back out and push farther
afield. First restoring main arteries (whether that is in the form of
roads, electrical dstribution, communications, water, or sewer) and
then branch out from there. All of that takes time. It does no good,
afterall, to repair the services in a neighborhood if the feeds into
that neighborhood aren't going to be functional for weeks.

And always remember that the first duty is to life and limb. The rest
is of far less importance until that situation has been stabilized.

On Mon, Oct 02, 2017 at 12:56:56AM -0400, Jean-Francois Mezei wrote:
> On 2017-10-02 00:32, Javier J wrote:
> 
> > I hope they do. There doesn't seem to be a shortage of FEMA, Army, etc
> > personnel on the ground or a shortage of truck drivers in the US willing to
> > help. If 80% of Truck drivers that pick up containers from the ports can't
> > make it, then this needs to be supplemented any way possible to get things
> > moving.
> 
> 
> When disaster is in focused area (Like Houston), truck drivers can
> easily return to functional cities after delivering goods to the diaster
> zone (so not a strain on food/lodging in diaster zone).
> 
> If you bring truck drivers (and telecom, electrical etc) workiers into
> Puerto Rico, they can't go home every night, so become a strain on
> shelter/food resources.
> 
> And you can't "steal" your local workers if they are busy pickup up
> their belongings from collapsed homes, waiting in long queues for food
> and caring for their families.
> 
> In 1998 Ice Storm, Bombardier in Montr??al had full power and got a lot
> of bad publicity when it threatened to fire employees who didn't show up
> for work. Seesm like mamnagement lived in areas that had power and
> didn't realise how life changes when you have no power,  queue up for
> wood provided by city etc. (and that is nothing compared to what people
> on Puerto Rico are dealing with).

---
Wayne Bouchard
w...@typo.org
Network Dude
http://www.typo.org/~web/

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Brooks Bridges]

It's also quite possible that many of the roads are perfectly passable 
by a 5000 to 7500# car however aren't cleared enough or stable enough 
for a 60,000 to 80,000# tractor-trailer.


On 10/1/2017 10:38 PM, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote:

On Sun, 01 Oct 2017 22:09:55 -0500, Jason Baugher said:

The more I read about this, the more disturbed I get. On the one hand, we
keep hearing that the trucks aren't moving because roads are impassable.
Then I read that government officials are driving from their remote areas
to San Juan to ask why no aid is coming, disputing the claims about the
roads.

It's quite possible for both to be true.  The fact that some government
officials are able to make it to San Juan isn't proof that nobody on the
island is stuck behind an impassable road.

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[valdis . kletnieks]

On Sun, 01 Oct 2017 22:09:55 -0500, Jason Baugher said:
> The more I read about this, the more disturbed I get. On the one hand, we
> keep hearing that the trucks aren't moving because roads are impassable.
> Then I read that government officials are driving from their remote areas
> to San Juan to ask why no aid is coming, disputing the claims about the
> roads.

It's quite possible for both to be true.  The fact that some government
officials are able to make it to San Juan isn't proof that nobody on the
island is stuck behind an impassable road.


pgpcIuLXn9W8f.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Jean-Francois Mezei]

On 2017-10-02 00:32, Javier J wrote:

> I hope they do. There doesn't seem to be a shortage of FEMA, Army, etc
> personnel on the ground or a shortage of truck drivers in the US willing to
> help. If 80% of Truck drivers that pick up containers from the ports can't
> make it, then this needs to be supplemented any way possible to get things
> moving.


When disaster is in focused area (Like Houston), truck drivers can
easily return to functional cities after delivering goods to the diaster
zone (so not a strain on food/lodging in diaster zone).

If you bring truck drivers (and telecom, electrical etc) workiers into
Puerto Rico, they can't go home every night, so become a strain on
shelter/food resources.

And you can't "steal" your local workers if they are busy pickup up
their belongings from collapsed homes, waiting in long queues for food
and caring for their families.

In 1998 Ice Storm, Bombardier in Montréal had full power and got a lot
of bad publicity when it threatened to fire employees who didn't show up
for work. Seesm like mamnagement lived in areas that had power and
didn't realise how life changes when you have no power,  queue up for
wood provided by city etc. (and that is nothing compared to what people
on Puerto Rico are dealing with).

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Javier J]

> Do FEMA and the National Guard have the authority to commandeer the
trucks and deliver the containers themselves?


I hope they do. There doesn't seem to be a shortage of FEMA, Army, etc
personnel on the ground or a shortage of truck drivers in the US willing to
help. If 80% of Truck drivers that pick up containers from the ports can't
make it, then this needs to be supplemented any way possible to get things
moving.

On Sun, Oct 1, 2017 at 11:09 PM, Jason Baugher 
wrote:

> The more I read about this, the more disturbed I get. On the one hand, we
> keep hearing that the trucks aren't moving because roads are impassable.
> Then I read that government officials are driving from their remote areas
> to San Juan to ask why no aid is coming, disputing the claims about the
> roads. We hear that there isn't fuel for the trucks, then a reporter from
> CNBC disputes that claim as well. The only thing that seems to be a common
> thread is that there are massive amounts of supplies sitting in San Juan
> and that they can't get truck drivers to deliver them.
>
> Do FEMA and the National Guard have the authority to commandeer the trucks
> and deliver the containers themselves? The telcom companies aren't going to
> be able to do much by way of repairs without supplies.
>
> On Sun, Oct 1, 2017 at 9:28 PM, Javier J 
> wrote:
>
>> At this point, I wouldn't trust status.pr and any media reports without
>> verifying information. As far as LibertyPR is concerned my cousin who
>> lives
>> in Carolina, PR told me thieves were stealing fiber optic cable after the
>> storm. I trust the Seon Donelan, FCC, US Military, FEMA reports in that
>> order. There was a report that 33% of cell phone service was reported.
>> That
>> is BS. We know from FCC reports it is still at ~90% out as far as number
>> of
>> operational cell sites.
>>
>>
>> The media here in the states is no better. I have multiple confirmations
>> and am looking for hard proof but the Teamsters Puerto Rico trucking union
>> is refusing to move containers out of the port. Only 20% of truckers
>> showed
>> up for work. Perhaps someone who works at Crowley can give us more
>> concrete
>> info but if you can't even move supplies out of the port, how the heck are
>> you supposed to replace wires/fiber/fuel etc?
>>
>>
>> Here is a CNBC report:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4Z01o4tBlI
>>
>> - Javier
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Sep 30, 2017 at 4:39 PM, Sean Donelan  wrote:
>>
>> > On Sat, 30 Sep 2017, Sean Donelan wrote:
>> >
>> >> The first public statement I've seen from LibertyPR was yesterday.
>> Their
>> >> network was completely down.  They've restored some of their main
>> >> infrastructure, i.e. cable headends and main fiber connections.
>> >> 100% of subscribers are out of service.
>> >>
>> >> I've seen pictures on twitter of LibertyPR crews fixing cables and
>> poles
>> >> on the island.
>> >>
>> >
>> > Liberty cable Puerto Rico has put out a press release today.
>> >
>> > LibertyPR is opening one public WiFi hot spot in Bahia Urbana in San
>> Juan
>> > from 3pm to 7pm Saturday, and 8am to 7pm daily starting Sunday.
>> >
>> > Additional hot spots will be announced by LibertyPR via press release in
>> > the future.
>> >
>> > I guess this is a sign LibertyPR's public relations office is back in
>> > operation.
>> >
>>
>
>

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Jean-Francois Mezei]

On 2017-10-01 23:09, Jason Baugher wrote:
> The more I read about this, the more disturbed I get. On the one hand, we
> keep hearing that the trucks aren't moving because roads are impassable.

Note: media NEVER shows places that are up and running, only shows
disaster zones, so one may not get full story by looking at media.

Just saw a report on Al Jazeera. 2 sisters trying to get to their father
who lives up in the hills. They show some main roads now open, but they
get to a "road closed" by a huge landslide (with diggers working to
clear it) and have to walk from there, including fording rivers. They
eventially get to their dad who is still alive.

If there are many cell towers on top of hills where the roads are
blocked by landslides, trees, restoration would take a long time before
ground crews get to clear those remote roads that might be considered
low priority.

(and it isn't clear that a helicopter could land there either).

> Do FEMA and the National Guard have the authority to commandeer the trucks
> and deliver the containers themselves? The telcom companies aren't going to
> be able to do much by way of repairs without supplies.

Where telecom wiring is underground, it may be easier to light the links
back up. But where it is aerial, they would have to wait for the
electric utility to fix the poles before stringing new wiring. Not clear
how much of aerial plant needs rebuild, or mere fixes.


After Sandy, Verizon saw the state of corrosion in lower Manhattan and
decided to not fix the copper and string  fibre instead. If enough of
the copper plant is destroyed, would Claro (or govt) consider stringing
FTTH instead of stringing copper?

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[valdis . kletnieks]

On Sun, 01 Oct 2017 22:28:31 -0400, Javier J said:

> The media here in the states is no better. I have multiple confirmations
> and am looking for hard proof but the Teamsters Puerto Rico trucking union
> is refusing to move containers out of the port. Only 20% of truckers showed
> up for work.

I haven't seen any reports of a Teamster union refusal. I *have* seen
reports that only 10-30% of truck drivers are operational, because of
one or more of:

1) Their rigs are stuck behind a highway outage due to washout
or downed trees.

2) Their rigs are stuck due to lack of diesel.

3) Rigs are fine, but drivers are stuck due to 1) or 2), or they
are too busy trying to save their families/etc to show up to work.

I've seen too  many reports of "I have been waiting in line for 5 hours for
water / gasoline / ice for 's insulin" to get too irate at people who
fail to show up for work.

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Jason Baugher]

The more I read about this, the more disturbed I get. On the one hand, we
keep hearing that the trucks aren't moving because roads are impassable.
Then I read that government officials are driving from their remote areas
to San Juan to ask why no aid is coming, disputing the claims about the
roads. We hear that there isn't fuel for the trucks, then a reporter from
CNBC disputes that claim as well. The only thing that seems to be a common
thread is that there are massive amounts of supplies sitting in San Juan
and that they can't get truck drivers to deliver them.

Do FEMA and the National Guard have the authority to commandeer the trucks
and deliver the containers themselves? The telcom companies aren't going to
be able to do much by way of repairs without supplies.

On Sun, Oct 1, 2017 at 9:28 PM, Javier J  wrote:

> At this point, I wouldn't trust status.pr and any media reports without
> verifying information. As far as LibertyPR is concerned my cousin who lives
> in Carolina, PR told me thieves were stealing fiber optic cable after the
> storm. I trust the Seon Donelan, FCC, US Military, FEMA reports in that
> order. There was a report that 33% of cell phone service was reported. That
> is BS. We know from FCC reports it is still at ~90% out as far as number of
> operational cell sites.
>
>
> The media here in the states is no better. I have multiple confirmations
> and am looking for hard proof but the Teamsters Puerto Rico trucking union
> is refusing to move containers out of the port. Only 20% of truckers showed
> up for work. Perhaps someone who works at Crowley can give us more concrete
> info but if you can't even move supplies out of the port, how the heck are
> you supposed to replace wires/fiber/fuel etc?
>
>
> Here is a CNBC report:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4Z01o4tBlI
>
> - Javier
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 30, 2017 at 4:39 PM, Sean Donelan  wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 30 Sep 2017, Sean Donelan wrote:
> >
> >> The first public statement I've seen from LibertyPR was yesterday. Their
> >> network was completely down.  They've restored some of their main
> >> infrastructure, i.e. cable headends and main fiber connections.
> >> 100% of subscribers are out of service.
> >>
> >> I've seen pictures on twitter of LibertyPR crews fixing cables and poles
> >> on the island.
> >>
> >
> > Liberty cable Puerto Rico has put out a press release today.
> >
> > LibertyPR is opening one public WiFi hot spot in Bahia Urbana in San Juan
> > from 3pm to 7pm Saturday, and 8am to 7pm daily starting Sunday.
> >
> > Additional hot spots will be announced by LibertyPR via press release in
> > the future.
> >
> > I guess this is a sign LibertyPR's public relations office is back in
> > operation.
> >
>

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Javier J]

At this point, I wouldn't trust status.pr and any media reports without
verifying information. As far as LibertyPR is concerned my cousin who lives
in Carolina, PR told me thieves were stealing fiber optic cable after the
storm. I trust the Seon Donelan, FCC, US Military, FEMA reports in that
order. There was a report that 33% of cell phone service was reported. That
is BS. We know from FCC reports it is still at ~90% out as far as number of
operational cell sites.


The media here in the states is no better. I have multiple confirmations
and am looking for hard proof but the Teamsters Puerto Rico trucking union
is refusing to move containers out of the port. Only 20% of truckers showed
up for work. Perhaps someone who works at Crowley can give us more concrete
info but if you can't even move supplies out of the port, how the heck are
you supposed to replace wires/fiber/fuel etc?


Here is a CNBC report:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4Z01o4tBlI

- Javier







On Sat, Sep 30, 2017 at 4:39 PM, Sean Donelan  wrote:

> On Sat, 30 Sep 2017, Sean Donelan wrote:
>
>> The first public statement I've seen from LibertyPR was yesterday. Their
>> network was completely down.  They've restored some of their main
>> infrastructure, i.e. cable headends and main fiber connections.
>> 100% of subscribers are out of service.
>>
>> I've seen pictures on twitter of LibertyPR crews fixing cables and poles
>> on the island.
>>
>
> Liberty cable Puerto Rico has put out a press release today.
>
> LibertyPR is opening one public WiFi hot spot in Bahia Urbana in San Juan
> from 3pm to 7pm Saturday, and 8am to 7pm daily starting Sunday.
>
> Additional hot spots will be announced by LibertyPR via press release in
> the future.
>
> I guess this is a sign LibertyPR's public relations office is back in
> operation.
>

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

On Sat, 30 Sep 2017, Sean Donelan wrote:

The first public statement I've seen from LibertyPR was yesterday. Their
network was completely down.  They've restored some of their main 
infrastructure, i.e. cable headends and main fiber connections.

100% of subscribers are out of service.

I've seen pictures on twitter of LibertyPR crews fixing cables and poles on 
the island.


Liberty cable Puerto Rico has put out a press release today.

LibertyPR is opening one public WiFi hot spot in Bahia Urbana in San Juan 
from 3pm to 7pm Saturday, and 8am to 7pm daily starting Sunday.


Additional hot spots will be announced by LibertyPR via press release in 
the future.


I guess this is a sign LibertyPR's public relations office is back in 
operation.

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

On Sat, 30 Sep 2017, Phil Rosenthal wrote:

Has anyone heard anything about Liberty Cablevision / AS14638?


The first public statement I've seen from LibertyPR was yesterday. Their
network was completely down.  They've restored some of their main 
infrastructure, i.e. cable headends and main fiber connections.

100% of subscribers are out of service.

I've seen pictures on twitter of LibertyPR crews fixing cables and poles 
on the island.

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

The Government of Puerto Rico has created a map of working cell sites in 
puerto Rico. I'm not certain about the source of the information. 
Cellular carriers usually object/refuse to release details about their 
operations.


http://status.pr/Maps

The map shows most working cell sites are in metro areas around San Juan. 
As I guessed, one or two cell sites in each county/municipality around the 
island.  There are almost no working cell sites covering the interior of 
the island.


Comparing the map to census bureau population maps indicates the working 
cell sites are in high population areas, which is necessary for disaster 
triage. Satellite phones are being distributed to mayors in the other 
counties/municipalities.

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Rod Beck]

The whole thing is a disgrace.



From: NANOG <nanog-boun...@nanog.org> on behalf of Phil Rosenthal 
<p...@isprime.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2017 3:47 PM
To: Jean-Francois Mezei
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

Has anyone heard anything about Liberty Cablevision / AS14638?

Our Netflow stats show a traffic drop to zero at the moment of landfall of 
Maria, late on 9/19, and a continued flat line at zero until now. Almost 11 
days without a single packet exchanged. This is (as far as I am aware), the #2 
largest ISP in Puerto Rico.

By comparison, Claro’s traffic certainly has dropped by a large degree, but it 
always stayed at least slightly above zero, and is roughly at 10% of normal 
traffic levels today.

-Phil

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Phil Rosenthal]

Has anyone heard anything about Liberty Cablevision / AS14638?

Our Netflow stats show a traffic drop to zero at the moment of landfall of 
Maria, late on 9/19, and a continued flat line at zero until now. Almost 11 
days without a single packet exchanged. This is (as far as I am aware), the #2 
largest ISP in Puerto Rico.

By comparison, Claro’s traffic certainly has dropped by a large degree, but it 
always stayed at least slightly above zero, and is roughly at 10% of normal 
traffic levels today.

-Phil

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Jean-Francois Mezei]

On 2017-09-29 23:07, Sean Donelan wrote:

> I don't know what FCC and PRTRB are counting:
> 
>  286 working cell sites out of 2671 (according to FCC report)
>  96 working cell sites out of 1600 (according to PR Telecommunications 
> Regulatory Board report)

I had noticed the different numbers too. My speculation:

The 1600 may refer to antenna  sites, whereas the 2671 may be the sum of
the number of sites reported by each carrier (think a mast supporting
antennas from multiple carriers).


Assuming my logic is correct, the 96/1600 statistic may be of more use
in a "can I dial 911" point of view.  Having multiple carriers "up" at
the same tower doesn't increase geographic footprint where some coverage
exists.

>From a disaster management point of view, in a town where each carrier
has its own tower, deciding which one to light up first could be
interesting. (aka carriers getting together to compare state of antennas
in town and somehow elevating that info to whoever controls the
generators (army corps of engineers who are "foreigners" with no local
knowledge).

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

The situation reports from Puerto Rico seems to be getting passed 
through public relations, so I'll try to add some context.



Public Safety
   Primary Public Safety Answering Point (9-1-1) center generator 
ran out of diesel fuel.  Switched to alternate PSAP.


  San Juan Police Department has restored its radio repeaters and 
police radio communications metro-wide. (translated from spanish, so I 
think I understood the technical translation).




Landline Central Offices
813,546 subscribers (CIA World Factbook)

390,000 subscribers in 52 municipalities with voice, data and long 
distance (Claro)
 Repaired fiber optic cable conntecting CO's in Fajardo and Rio 
Grande.


 65% of inter-office Central Office connections restored island-wide.
 Remaining CO's have only local voice calling.

 Optico Fiber reports most of its infrastructure is intact, and has 
open WiFi hotspots outside its offices.



Wireless services
3,227,281 subscribers (CIA World Factbook)

29 municipalities have 0% working cell sites.  It appears carriers are 
repairing one tower in each county/municipality to improve island-wide 
coverage.  Several municipalities going from 0 to 1 cell site working.


310,000 subscribers in 28 municipalities with working cell towers (Claro)

34% of San Juan has working cell tower coverage (Claro)

Cell on Wheels in Ponce (4 mile radius) serving 6,000 calls per hour, 
35,000 texts per hour (AT)


Dorado, Tao Baja and Toa Alta have T-Mobile service (T-Mobile)


I don't know what FCC and PRTRB are counting:

286 working cell sites out of 2671 (according to FCC report)
96 working cell sites out of 1600 (according to PR Telecommunications 
Regulatory Board report)


For context, the number of cell sites repaired each day since 
the end of Hurricane Maria is improving slowly - average less than 20 
sites a day, but some days its negative, i.e. more cell towers failing 
than repaired.


On U.S. Virigin Islands, the number of cell sites out of service 
decreased initially, but has slowly increased for the last 5 days.


I created a spreadsheet of the FCC wirelss outage data from hurricane 
Harvey, Irma and Maria.


https://www.donelan.com/FCC-Wireless-Outages.xlsx

There is no consistent pattern between states, territories or hurricanes. 
Florida had the fatest wireless restoration, average 500 cell sites 
restored a day; while U.S. Virgin Islands averaged less than 1 
cell site restored.  But Florida was mostly restoring the electrical grid, 
which restored lots of cell sites.  Harvey was slow to start restoring 
cell sites, the tropical storm lasted for days; but less than 6% of cell 
sites were out of service.



Cable systems

 First official report from Liberty Cable Puerto Rico

 Most cable headends or in good condition, with backup generators. 
Internet connection to international circuits reconnected. Main fiber 
trunk between San Juan and Luquillo completed. Working to repair 
infrastructure and primary services such as physical plant, main 
repeater bases, fiber optic ring and fiber to distribution stations in 
neighborhoods. (LibertyPR)



Satellite Services and Satellite Phones

   As more satellite phones are distributed, social media and news 
reporters are saying satellite capacity is getting worse.  It may be user 
issues and lack of training, or running out of satellite bandwidth in the 
area.


   American Red Cross driving a VSAT station between shelters, and 
setting up temporary hotspots for an hour at each shelter so people can 
contact family members.

Re: [Ext] Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Barbara Roseman]

Sean, thank you for all the excellent updates you have been providing. 
Status.pr is disturbing since there is no context to the stats offered on this 
page. 49% of supermarkets may be open, but with nothing on their shelves. And 
11k refugees? Who are they trying to kid with a number like that. 

-Barb
+1.808.385.1677
mauig...@earthlink.net

Written on the move, apologies for any errors. 

> On Sep 29, 2017, at 8:15 AM, Sean Donelan  wrote:
> 
> Career federal employees are taught to write situation reports in very boring 
> language with just the facts known. Nevertheless, after reading lots of 
> situation reports, you start to notice when the bubureaucratic language 
> changes. Perhaps the most famous was the commander of Apollo 13's report 
> "Houston, We have a problem."
> 
> Puerto Rico has announced a new web site with current status:
> 
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__status.pr_=DwIBAg=FmY1u3PJp6wrcrwll3mSVzgfkbPSS6sJms7xcl4I5cM=eFHwbDul3gCazAMQCZYPBUi5FR29U9pfCEZA3KSPp1U=8QGAW2zyikBvyqdqem1ufMWHN1wmpYs5CHOkKkgxHuY=zr44KzVhB4CMsDiVsjPo0RNdkIMb14m0WxW3UV60JYY=
>  
> 
> However, in the last 24 hours I've noticed some agency situation reports used 
> different statistics to report "happy, happy, joy, joy" stuff. In the 
> bureaucratic world, this is very concerning, such as when the Veterans 
> Administration was misreporting appointment waiting times to look better.
> 
> You can't fix problems, if the real situation isn't being reported accurately 
> to senior leadership even if its bad news.
> 

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

Career federal employees are taught to write situation reports in very 
boring language with just the facts known. Nevertheless, after 
reading lots of situation reports, you start to notice when the 
bubureaucratic language changes. Perhaps the most famous was the 
commander of Apollo 13's report "Houston, We have a problem."


Puerto Rico has announced a new web site with current status:

http://status.pr/


However, in the last 24 hours I've noticed some agency situation reports 
used different statistics to report "happy, happy, joy, joy" stuff. In the 
bureaucratic world, this is very concerning, such as when the Veterans 
Administration was misreporting appointment waiting times to look better.


You can't fix problems, if the real situation isn't being reported 
accurately to senior leadership even if its bad news.

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Mike Hammett]

The WISP I'm getting updates from is having thefts as well. Still having 
logistics issues. The leading idea at the moment is tower-mounted solar panels 
and batteries. Nothing is foolproof without armed guards, but it's better than 
nothing. 




- 
Mike Hammett 
Intelligent Computing Solutions 
http://www.ics-il.com 

Midwest-IX 
http://www.midwest-ix.com 

- Original Message -

From: "Sean Donelan" <s...@donelan.com> 
To: nanog@nanog.org 
Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2017 4:44:30 PM 
Subject: Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of 


After a week without power, all the stationary batteries throughout the 
telecommunications network are likely completely drained. This makes 
restoration even more difficult, like a dead car battery needing a jump 
start. 

I am focusing on U.S. territories, but there is also disaster response 
from Hurricanes Irma and Maria on Antigua and Barbuda, Cuba, Dominica, 
Montserrat, Saint Martin, and St. Kitts and Nevis. 

Fatalities, including deaths attributed to post-hurricane recovery: 
Hurricane Iram: 72 - Florida; 40 - Caribbean 
Hurricane Maria: 16 - Puerto Rico; 2 - U.S. Virigin Islands; 15 - 
Dominica, 3 - Haiti; 2 - Guadeloupe 

Department of Defense: 
Supporting FEMA, the Department of Defense has deployed USNORTHCOM 
Brigadier General Rich Kim to Puerto Rico to manage the Title 10 
(military) response efforts in Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands. 
USSOUTHCOM continues to support relief activities elsewhere in 
the Caribbean. 


Airports and sea ports: 
Puerto Rico: 3 sea ports open; 5 sea ports open with restrictions, 
daylight hours only. 9 airports are open. Only San Juan Airport open to 
commercial air traffic, approximately 15-20 commercial flights. All 
other flights reserved for priority military and relief activities. 

U.S Virgin Islands: 4 sea ports open with restrictions, daylight hours 
only. U.S. VI airports closed except military and relief flights. 


Electricity: 
Puerto Rico: 1.57 million customers out of service. An estimate of 4% 
has been restored. Restoring power to airports, hospitals, sea ports and 
water treatment plants are still critical priorities. 80% of transmission 
lines damaged, power generation plants appear intact. 

U.S. Virgin Islands: 55,000 customers out of service, most of the 
islands. St. Thomas has five feeders partially energised. St. Croix has 
three feeders partially energized. Restoring power to airports, hospitals, 
sea ports and water treatment plants are still critical priorities. 


Telecommunications: 

Pictures posted on twitter of joint restoration meeting between 
telecommunications providers, FEMA and Puerto Rico Telecommunications 
Regulatory Board. From the logos & colors on shirts: Claro, T-Mobile, 
Sprint, and many other company logos I couldn't make out (estimate 20 
people in the room). 

Reports of generators and fuel stolen from cell sites and remote 
telecommunications locations. This is not unusual during disasters. The 
Puerto Rico Telecommunications Industry Alliance, which appears to be a 
lobbying group of communication companies in Puerto Rico, has sent a 
letter about the need for FEMA to coordinate logistics and prioritize 
access to fuel and security. PRTIA (or APT in Spanish) has existed for a 
few years, but I can't judge if its letter represents telecommunication 
companies in Puerto Rico. 

Puerto Rico: 
2,432 of 2,671 cell sites (91%) out of service. 
No update/change to cable and wireline systems, about 55% of central 
offices with voice, data and long-distance. The rest with only local 
voice, no inter-office connections. No clear description about status of 
local loops or subscribers with service. 

Pictures of Liberty Cable PR repair crews posted on twitter. I still 
haven't found a public statement about LibertyPR's status. 

Approximately 450-500 out of 1200 Internet networks and 35-38 out of 
48 ASNs are present in the global Internet routing table, with occasional 
up/down changes due to restoration activity. 

U.S. Virigin Islands: 
70 of 106 cell sites (66%) out of service. 
No update/change to cable and wireline systems. 

U.S. Virgin Islands Internet routes have nearly returned to normal, 
with occasional up/down blips due to restoration activity. 


I'm not ignoring the status competitive and smaller USVI and PR 
communication providers, its just difficult to find official statements 
from them. If you have status about them, let me know. 

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Jean-Francois Mezei]

FYI:
White House announces that the US Army Corp of Engineers is in charge of
power in Puerto Rico, and were given priorities to hospitals and other
emergency services. No mention of telecom being part of those
priorities.  Initial push is installing temporary power generation.
They are not yet working on fixing the electrical grid.

(44 of 69 hospitals now have power).

(Note: FEMA has decided to stick to road deliveries, not air drops for
supplies).

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Javier J]

> Telecommunications:

  Pictures posted on twitter of joint restoration meeting between..


What twitter feed was this?

I didn't catch it.

On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 5:44 PM, Sean Donelan  wrote:

>
> After a week without power, all the stationary batteries throughout the
> telecommunications network are likely completely drained.  This makes
> restoration even more difficult, like a dead car battery needing a jump
> start.
>
> I am focusing on U.S. territories, but there is also disaster response
> from Hurricanes Irma and Maria on Antigua and Barbuda, Cuba, Dominica,
> Montserrat, Saint Martin, and St. Kitts and Nevis.
>
> Fatalities, including deaths attributed to post-hurricane recovery:
>Hurricane Iram: 72 - Florida; 40
>  -
> Caribbean
>Hurricane Maria: 16 - Puerto Rico; 2
>  -
> U.S. Virigin Islands; 15 - Dominica, 3 - Haiti; 2 - Guadeloupe
>
> Department of Defense:
>Supporting FEMA, the Department of Defense has deployed USNORTHCOM
> Brigadier General Rich Kim to Puerto Rico to manage the Title 10 (military)
> response efforts in Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands. USSOUTHCOM
> continues to support relief activities elsewhere in the Caribbean.
>
>
> Airports and sea ports:
>Puerto Rico: 3 sea ports open; 5 sea ports open with restrictions,
> daylight hours only. 9 airports are open. Only San Juan Airport open to
> commercial air traffic, approximately 15-20 commercial flights.  All other
> flights reserved for priority military and relief activities.
>
>U.S Virgin Islands: 4 sea ports open with restrictions, daylight hours
> only.  U.S. VI airports closed except military and relief flights.
>
>
> Electricity:
>Puerto Rico: 1.57 million customers out of service. An estimate of 4%
> has been restored. Restoring power to airports, hospitals, sea ports and
> water treatment plants are still critical priorities.  80% of transmission
> lines damaged, power generation plants appear intact.
>
>U.S. Virgin Islands: 55,000 customers out of service, most of the
> islands. St. Thomas has five feeders partially energised. St. Croix has
> three feeders partially energized. Restoring power to airports, hospitals,
> sea ports and water treatment plants are still critical priorities.
>
>
> Telecommunications:
>
>   Pictures posted on twitter of joint restoration meeting between
> telecommunications providers, FEMA and Puerto Rico Telecommunications
> Regulatory Board. From the logos & colors on shirts: Claro, T-Mobile,
> Sprint, and many other company logos I couldn't make out (estimate 20
> people in the room).
>
>   Reports of generators and fuel stolen from cell sites and remote
> telecommunications locations. This is not unusual during disasters.  The
> Puerto Rico Telecommunications Industry Alliance, which appears to be a
> lobbying group of communication companies in Puerto Rico, has sent a letter
> about the need for FEMA to coordinate logistics and prioritize access to
> fuel and security. PRTIA (or APT in Spanish) has existed for a few years,
> but I can't judge if its letter represents telecommunication companies in
> Puerto Rico.
>
>   Puerto Rico:
>  2,432 of 2,671 cell sites (91%) out of service.
>  No update/change to cable and wireline systems, about 55% of central
> offices with voice, data and long-distance.  The rest with only local
> voice, no inter-office connections.  No clear description about status of
> local loops or subscribers with service.
>
>  Pictures of Liberty Cable PR repair crews posted on twitter. I still
> haven't found a public statement about LibertyPR's status.
>
>  Approximately 450-500 out of 1200 Internet networks and 35-38 out of
> 48 ASNs are present in the global Internet routing table, with occasional
> up/down changes due to restoration activity.
>
>   U.S. Virigin Islands:
>  70 of 106 cell sites (66%) out of service.
>  No update/change to cable and wireline systems.
>
>  U.S. Virgin Islands Internet routes have nearly returned to normal,
> with occasional up/down blips due to restoration activity.
>
>
> I'm not ignoring the status competitive and smaller USVI and PR
> communication providers, its just difficult to find official statements
> from them.  If you have status about them, let me know.
>

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

On Wed, 27 Sep 2017, Jean-Francois Mezei wrote:

After a week without power, all the stationary batteries throughout the
telecommunications network are likely completely drained.


from the point of view of cell sites, wouldn't battery autonomy be
measured in hours rather than days?  I could see some site having
autonomy in days due to permanent generator, and when fuel runs out so
does the cell site.


Yes, long-term power is generators.  But there is always a catch.

What happens during disaster recovery is the batteries are damaged by 
being drained repeatedly, dirty power from generators, and enviromental 
conditions. After too many deep-discharge cycles during the disaster, the 
batteries won't hold a charge any more.  The battery failure rate, 
requiring replacement, goes through the roof after about a week in a 
disaster.  Even those 10-year telco batteries don't last 10-years during 
disaster conditions.


Since a lot of telecommunications gear actually runs off -48 volt battery 
string, and the generators recharge the batteries; when the batteries 
completely fail even with a generator, no more telecom.  You have to 
replace the battery string or run the telecom gear on raw generator power 
(which then damages the telecom gear even more).


Sometimes even the battery starter on the generator fail to start after 
too many refueling stops.  Most backup generators are only rated for 
"stand-by" service, not continuous operation for weeks. Generators need 
more maintenance, and fail more often.


Disaster logistics is a string of dominos. If they start being knocked 
over, it just gets worse.  Stuff that works great during normal 
conditions doesn't anymore. Simple fixes are all complicated now.

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Jean-Francois Mezei]

On 2017-09-27 17:44, Sean Donelan wrote:

> After a week without power, all the stationary batteries throughout the 
> telecommunications network are likely completely drained.

from the point of view of cell sites, wouldn't battery autonomy be
measured in hours rather than days?  I could see some site having
autonomy in days due to permanent generator, and when fuel runs out so
does the cell site.

> I'm not ignoring the status competitive and smaller USVI and PR 
> communication providers, its just difficult to find official statements 
> from them.  If you have status about them, let me know.

One aspect often forgotten is that people have homes (or what is left of
them) families and the need to find food/water which can involve
standing in line for hours in a day and they may not be able to show up
for work. larger companies can usually find enough employees not so
hindered, but smaller outfits may not be able to remain functional due
to not enough staff able to work.

Smaller outfits may not have the ability to get petrol for their trucks
to go out oand fix things. (whereas the big guys have the credentials to
get petrol form authorities/army.

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

After a week without power, all the stationary batteries throughout the 
telecommunications network are likely completely drained.  This makes 
restoration even more difficult, like a dead car battery needing a jump 
start.


I am focusing on U.S. territories, but there is also disaster response 
from Hurricanes Irma and Maria on Antigua and Barbuda, Cuba, Dominica, 
Montserrat, Saint Martin, and St. Kitts and Nevis.


Fatalities, including deaths attributed to post-hurricane recovery:
   Hurricane Iram: 72 - Florida; 40 - Caribbean
   Hurricane Maria: 16 - Puerto Rico; 2 - U.S. Virigin Islands; 15 - 
Dominica, 3 - Haiti; 2 - Guadeloupe


Department of Defense:
   Supporting FEMA, the Department of Defense has deployed USNORTHCOM 
Brigadier General Rich Kim to Puerto Rico to manage the Title 10 
(military) response efforts in Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands. 
USSOUTHCOM continues to support relief activities elsewhere in 
the Caribbean.



Airports and sea ports:
   Puerto Rico: 3 sea ports open; 5 sea ports open with restrictions, 
daylight hours only. 9 airports are open. Only San Juan Airport open to 
commercial air traffic, approximately 15-20 commercial flights.  All 
other flights reserved for priority military and relief activities.


   U.S Virgin Islands: 4 sea ports open with restrictions, daylight hours 
only.  U.S. VI airports closed except military and relief flights.



Electricity:
   Puerto Rico: 1.57 million customers out of service. An estimate of 4% 
has been restored. Restoring power to airports, hospitals, sea ports and 
water treatment plants are still critical priorities.  80% of transmission 
lines damaged, power generation plants appear intact.


   U.S. Virgin Islands: 55,000 customers out of service, most of the 
islands. St. Thomas has five feeders partially energised. St. Croix has 
three feeders partially energized. Restoring power to airports, hospitals, 
sea ports and water treatment plants are still critical priorities.



Telecommunications:

  Pictures posted on twitter of joint restoration meeting between 
telecommunications providers, FEMA and Puerto Rico Telecommunications 
Regulatory Board. From the logos & colors on shirts: Claro, T-Mobile, 
Sprint, and many other company logos I couldn't make out (estimate 20 
people in the room).


  Reports of generators and fuel stolen from cell sites and remote 
telecommunications locations. This is not unusual during disasters.  The 
Puerto Rico Telecommunications Industry Alliance, which appears to be a 
lobbying group of communication companies in Puerto Rico, has sent a 
letter about the need for FEMA to coordinate logistics and prioritize 
access to fuel and security. PRTIA (or APT in Spanish) has existed for a 
few years, but I can't judge if its letter represents telecommunication 
companies in Puerto Rico.


  Puerto Rico:
 2,432 of 2,671 cell sites (91%) out of service.
 No update/change to cable and wireline systems, about 55% of central 
offices with voice, data and long-distance.  The rest with only local 
voice, no inter-office connections.  No clear description about status of 
local loops or subscribers with service.


 Pictures of Liberty Cable PR repair crews posted on twitter. I still 
haven't found a public statement about LibertyPR's status.


 Approximately 450-500 out of 1200 Internet networks and 35-38 out of 
48 ASNs are present in the global Internet routing table, with occasional 
up/down changes due to restoration activity.


  U.S. Virigin Islands:
 70 of 106 cell sites (66%) out of service.
 No update/change to cable and wireline systems.

 U.S. Virgin Islands Internet routes have nearly returned to normal, 
with occasional up/down blips due to restoration activity.



I'm not ignoring the status competitive and smaller USVI and PR 
communication providers, its just difficult to find official statements 
from them.  If you have status about them, let me know.

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Mikael Abrahamsson]

On Wed, 27 Sep 2017, Sean Donelan wrote:

Things are better and worse in Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands. 
Help is needed, but anyone wanting to help in the field, be certain you 
understand what you would be doing, and whether you are actually helping 
or hindering on the ground efforts.


https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/9/26/16365994/hurricane-maria-2017-puerto-rico-san-juan-humanitarian-disaster-electricty-fuel-flights-facts

This seems to indicate that it will be 4-6 months until things get back to 
normal, if there indeed is a huge effort to do so.


"But as first responders on the ground in Puerto Rico told Fernández 
Campbell, this isn’t enough. Trump should also ask Congress to pass a 
relief package for Puerto Rico to give FEMA and the island more money to 
rebuild. He could deploy more military resources to help with search and 
rescue operations."


I hope this happens.

--
Mikael Abrahamssonemail: swm...@swm.pp.se

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Keith Stokes]

And your upstream(s) to work. And their upstream(s) to work. etc. If 90% of the 
stations in the EAS web are down you may end up with nothing working.


On Sep 27, 2017, at 9:21 AM, Edwin Pers 
> wrote:

The telecommunications damage in PR and USVI will be a good test how well the 
EAS works during extreme telecommunications damage.

>From my brief time as a radio station tech, all you need for EAS to function 
>properly is power to the receiver/decoder and for the station's transmitter to 
>be alive



---

Keith Stokes

RE: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Edwin Pers]

> The telecommunications damage in PR and USVI will be a good test how well the 
> EAS works during extreme telecommunications damage.

From my brief time as a radio station tech, all you need for EAS to function 
properly is power to the receiver/decoder and for the station's transmitter to 
be alive

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

Things are better and worse in Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands. 
Help is needed, but anyone wanting to help in the field, be certain you 
understand what you would be doing, and whether you are actually helping 
or hindering on the ground efforts.




From Washington Post:
[U.S. FEMA Director] Long also warned people not involved with the relief 
effort to stay away.


“If you’re going to Puerto Rico right now, it should be for only a 
life-sustaining, life-support mission,” he said. “Because everybody that’s 
trying to get in that’s not supporting that is getting in the way.”




According to reports, the major (but not named) telecommunication 
companies met today with the Puerto Rico Telecommunications Regulatory 
Bureau about coordinating restoration efforts.  Several companies have 
agreed to joint repairts.  Instead of each company sending multiple crews 
to the shared cell sites, they will agree to divide the work among all 
the companies.


This will distribute more repair crews from all participating companies to 
more cell sites from different companies around the island.


Claro, the ILEC, is the only company that has publically confirmed the 
joint repair agreement.  AT, T-Mobile and Sprint also have repair crews 
on the island, but I haven't been able to confirm which companies have 
signed the joint repair agreement.


Claro also said they've re-connected 55% of its Central Offices, including 
voice, data and long distance.  Once again, I'm guessing this is 
inter-office trunks, and not local subscriber loops.


The FCC reports 2,429 of 2,671 cell sites (90.9%) are out of service in 
Puerto Rico.  And 65 out of 106 cell sites (61.3%) are out of service in 
the U.S. Virgin Islands.



Broadcast Radio and Television

14 AM stations on the air on Puerto Rico

8 FM stations on the air on Puerto Rico

2 TV stations on the air on Puerto Rico


Special notice: On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 2:20pm Easter Time, 
FEMA will be conducting a scheduled national test of the Emergency Alert 
System.  This national test was scheduled in July, 2017. The test will 
take about a minute, and sound like a typical monthly EAS test "This is a 
national test of the Emergency Alert System. This is only a test."


Most people probably won't pay attention to the national EAS test on 
Wednesday. But there are always few news stories about some people 
being alarmed by the national test.


If there is an *new* emergency or severe weather at the time, the national 
test will be rescheduled for October 4, 2017.  Although the disasters in 
Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands are continuing, the national test will 
be a very brief interruption on radio and TV on the islands. The 
telecommunications damage in PR and USVI will be a good test how well the 
EAS works during extreme telecommunications damage.

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Javier J]

Keep on posting this great info Sean. It is being passed along. Just wanted
you to be aware.

On Tue, Sep 26, 2017 at 12:52 AM, Sean Donelan  wrote:

> It looks like someone kicked the cellular carriers public relations people
> into gear. Today, instead of the normal "we care" messages; they released
> statements providing more concrete details about their restoration activity
> in PR and USVI.
>
> Overall, 91.2% cell sites out of service in Puerto Rico. 34 of 78 counties
> have 100% cell sites out of service.  This will continue to change up and
> down, as sites are restored and circuits are damaged by cleanup activity.
>
> There are over 2,671 cell sites on Puerto Rico and 106 cell sites in U.S.
> Virgin Islands.  As carriers bring in tens of generators and repair
> equipment at a time, gives you some idea how long restoration will take.
>
>
> In alphabetical order...
>
> ATT:
> "We continue to send aircraft with essential supplies and network
> resources as we help the people of Puerto Rico. These flights include
> portable temporary cell sites, high capacity generators to provide
> temporary power, and other larger network equipment on cargo planes and
> barges to help restore services on the island. We planning to set up a
> number of portable cell sites in the San Juan area as soon as possible.
>
> So far, we’ve sent multiple flights carrying the following supplies:
> More than 30 generators
> 5,000+ gallons of water
> We are also focused on network restoration in the U.S. Virgin Islands are
> bringing additional resources there."
>
>
> Claro (google translate from Spanish):
> They reported that in the metropolitan area specifically, Claro's signal
> was already reaching 31 percent of customers in San Juan, 22 percent in
> Guaynabo and 18 percent in Carolina and Bayamón.
>
> At the island level, the Claro signal is up in 14 municipalities today,
> covering an average of 20 percent of the clients in Aguada, Manatí,
> Mayaguez, San Germán, Cabo Rojo, Trujillo Alto, Dorado, Camuy,
> Quebradillas, Humacao, Juncos , Caguas, Aguadilla and Toa Baja.
>
> That number will increase in the coming days.
>
>
> Sprint:
> "A vessel has already arrived in Puerto Rico with the generators and parts
> required to begin the work. In turn, a body of over 40 Sprint engineers and
> technicians in the United States were sent to the Island to join the local
> technical staff, coordinate the delivery of the equipment received and
> continue work to speed up the communication.
> A second shipment will arrive on the island this Wednesday, September 27
> with additional spare parts and materials."
>
>
> T-Mobile:
> "The damage to the infrastructure is unprecedented, but equally it is the
> support we are receiving from T-Mobile US. Between Saturday and Sunday, six
> MD11 cargo planes and one AM124 (second largest cargo plane in the world)
> arrived with 80 generators, 16 trucks, equipment to build 100 communication
> facilities. More cargo planes will arrive today with more equipment and
> personnel."
>
> T-Mobile also mentions while T-Mobile's field engineering crew was at the
> Luis Muñoz Marín Airport, they were drafted to help install a generator for
> the FAA Control Tower. That's one way to help get your supplies on the
> island.
>
>
> If you have information about other telecommunication providers in Puerto
> Rico or U.S. Virgin Islands, let me know.
>
>
>
> Due to damage to the FAA communications and guidance systems, only a dozen
> or so commercial flights can land during daylight hours each day. Airlines
> report over 20,000 people on standby lists, and nearly 1,000 people waiting
> at the airport for any flight.
>
> The Port of San Juan is open, daylight hours only, and receiving freight
> barges. While there is a plenty of fuel, food and supplies at the port;
> getting truck drivers to the port and damage/blocked roads is slowing
> distribution of supplies to the rest of the island. U.S. Mail and other
> express delivery companies still do not have service in Puerto Rico.
> Limited U.S. Mail hand-out service is available at a few post offices in
> U.S. Virgin Islands.
>

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Chaim Rieger]

I doubt the runway is stable enough to hold the weight of a loaded c5.

On Sep 26, 2017 01:05, "Mikael Abrahamsson"  wrote:

> On Tue, 26 Sep 2017, Sean Donelan wrote:
>
> It looks like someone kicked the cellular carriers public relations people
>> into gear. Today, instead of the normal "we care" messages; they released
>> statements providing more concrete details about their restoration activity
>> in PR and USVI.
>>
>
> What is the US government role in all of this? It sounds like a few
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_C-5_Galaxy could be of use here to
> airlift in lots of gear.
>
> --
> Mikael Abrahamssonemail: swm...@swm.pp.se
>

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Mikael Abrahamsson]

On Tue, 26 Sep 2017, Sean Donelan wrote:

It looks like someone kicked the cellular carriers public relations 
people into gear. Today, instead of the normal "we care" messages; they 
released statements providing more concrete details about their 
restoration activity in PR and USVI.


What is the US government role in all of this? It sounds like a few 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_C-5_Galaxy could be of use here to 
airlift in lots of gear.


--
Mikael Abrahamssonemail: swm...@swm.pp.se

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Wayne Bouchard]

On Tue, Sep 26, 2017 at 12:52:29AM -0400, Sean Donelan wrote:
> T-Mobile also mentions while T-Mobile's field engineering crew was at the 
> Luis Mu??oz Mar??n Airport, they were drafted to help install a generator 
> for the FAA Control Tower. That's one way to help get your supplies on the 
> island.

You know, that's a really good point. In such situations, the sooner
you can get the basic infrastructure operational again and
transportation, electrical systems, and fuel distribution (generators
have to run on something...) in particular, the faster everything can
start coming back together. First and foremost, this means making the
place habitable again so you actually have customers to serve. So any
time spent doing something like what is related above is extremely
worth while and can only serve to facilitate future work for everyone
on the island.


---
Wayne Bouchard
w...@typo.org
Network Dude
http://www.typo.org/~web/

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

It looks like someone kicked the cellular carriers public relations people 
into gear. Today, instead of the normal "we care" messages; they released 
statements providing more concrete details about their restoration 
activity in PR and USVI.


Overall, 91.2% cell sites out of service in Puerto Rico. 34 of 78 counties 
have 100% cell sites out of service.  This will continue to change up and 
down, as sites are restored and circuits are damaged by cleanup activity.


There are over 2,671 cell sites on Puerto Rico and 106 cell sites in U.S. 
Virgin Islands.  As carriers bring in tens of generators and repair 
equipment at a time, gives you some idea how long restoration will take.



In alphabetical order...

ATT:
"We continue to send aircraft with essential supplies and network 
resources as we help the people of Puerto Rico. These flights include 
portable temporary cell sites, high capacity generators to provide 
temporary power, and other larger network equipment on cargo planes and 
barges to help restore services on the island. We planning to set up a 
number of portable cell sites in the San Juan area as soon as possible.


So far, we’ve sent multiple flights carrying the following supplies:
More than 30 generators
5,000+ gallons of water
We are also focused on network restoration in the U.S. Virgin Islands are 
bringing additional resources there."



Claro (google translate from Spanish):
They reported that in the metropolitan area specifically, Claro's signal 
was already reaching 31 percent of customers in San Juan, 22 percent in 
Guaynabo and 18 percent in Carolina and Bayamón.


At the island level, the Claro signal is up in 14 municipalities today, 
covering an average of 20 percent of the clients in Aguada, Manatí, 
Mayaguez, San Germán, Cabo Rojo, Trujillo Alto, Dorado, Camuy, 
Quebradillas, Humacao, Juncos , Caguas, Aguadilla and Toa Baja.


That number will increase in the coming days.


Sprint:
"A vessel has already arrived in Puerto Rico with the generators and parts 
required to begin the work. In turn, a body of over 40 Sprint engineers 
and technicians in the United States were sent to the Island to join the 
local technical staff, coordinate the delivery of the equipment received 
and continue work to speed up the communication.
A second shipment will arrive on the island this Wednesday, September 27 
with additional spare parts and materials."



T-Mobile:
"The damage to the infrastructure is unprecedented, but equally it is the 
support we are receiving from T-Mobile US. Between Saturday and Sunday, 
six MD11 cargo planes and one AM124 (second largest cargo plane in the 
world) arrived with 80 generators, 16 trucks, equipment to build 100 
communication facilities. More cargo planes will arrive today with more 
equipment and personnel."


T-Mobile also mentions while T-Mobile's field engineering crew was at the 
Luis Muñoz Marín Airport, they were drafted to help install a generator 
for the FAA Control Tower. That's one way to help get your supplies on the 
island.



If you have information about other telecommunication providers in Puerto 
Rico or U.S. Virgin Islands, let me know.




Due to damage to the FAA communications and guidance systems, only a 
dozen or so commercial flights can land during daylight hours each day. 
Airlines report over 20,000 people on standby lists, and nearly 1,000 
people waiting at the airport for any flight.


The Port of San Juan is open, daylight hours only, and receiving freight 
barges. While there is a plenty of fuel, food and supplies at the port; 
getting truck drivers to the port and damage/blocked roads is slowing 
distribution of supplies to the rest of the island. U.S. Mail and other 
express delivery companies still do not have service in Puerto Rico. 
Limited U.S. Mail hand-out service is available at a few post offices in 
U.S. Virgin Islands.

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Mike Hammett]

You're assuming the WISP isn't providing infrastructure to critical facilities. 




- 
Mike Hammett 
Intelligent Computing Solutions 

Midwest Internet Exchange 

The Brothers WISP 

- Original Message -

From: "Jean-Francois Mezei" <jfmezei_na...@vaxination.ca> 
To: nanog@nanog.org 
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2017 6:55:41 PM 
Subject: Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of 

On 2017-09-24 17:13, Sean Donelan wrote: 

> I'm not sure what clearances they are waiting for. If they are already in 
> Puerto Rico, self-sufficient, and respect curfews and other emergency 
> responders, they should be able to start local restoration and recovery 
> activities. 

Priority is to restore communications to emergency responders, restore 
power to hospitals and other critical infrastructure). So workers that 
clear roads, remove dangling electrical wires would prioritize fixing of 
that critical infrastructure. That road you need cleared to get to your 
fixed wireless antenna will wait. 

Similarly, I get the impression that all cargo capacity into the island 
is still controlled to prioritize essentials. So those spare circuit 
board you need to fix a router have to wait. 

Also, with residences overwhelmingly without power, fixing the "normal" 
ISP business won't do much when nobody can use it. It is best to focus 
on wi-fi in central locations such as shelters, and cellular for first 
responders and others. 

There are good reasons local governments work out disaster plans because 
they need to identify in advance what gets priority after a disaster. 

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Jean-Francois Mezei]

On 2017-09-24 17:13, Sean Donelan wrote:

> I'm not sure what clearances they are waiting for.  If they are already in 
> Puerto Rico, self-sufficient, and respect curfews and other emergency 
> responders, they should be able to start local restoration and recovery 
> activities.

Priority is to restore communications to emergency responders, restore
power to hospitals and other critical infrastructure). So workers that
clear roads, remove dangling electrical wires would prioritize fixing of
that critical infrastructure.  That road you need cleared to get to your
fixed wireless antenna will wait.

Similarly, I get the impression that all cargo capacity into the island
is still controlled to prioritize essentials. So those spare circuit
board you need to fix a router have to wait.

Also, with residences overwhelmingly without power, fixing the "normal"
ISP business won't do much when nobody can use it. It is best to focus
on wi-fi in central locations such as shelters, and cellular for first
responders and others.

There are good reasons local governments work out disaster plans because
they need to identify in advance what gets priority after a disaster.

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

As of this morning, the ILEC Claro is reporting

8 central offices have voice, data and long distance service operating, 
mostly in metro areas.  This does not include outside plant or local loops 
serving customers.


Central offices serving 55 of 78 municipalities have local voice service, 
no inter-office or long-distance service.  Again, not including the local 
loop to a customer.


27% of cell sites in service, mostly in the north and east parts of the 
island, operating.  I'm not sure if this is 27% of all cell sites on the 
island, or 27% of cell sites only in the north and east.


Other providers say they are working to restore service, but are not 
releasing specific data about their network status (AT, Open Mobile, 
Sprint, T-Mobile). Cable provider, LibertyPR, hasn't said anything to local 
reporters that I could find in any of the PR newspaper websites; and 
appears to be completely out of service.


There are several competitive providers and small providers I don't have 
information about in PR.  I just don't know the market.  If anyone has 
status about any small providers operating, let me know their status.

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Mike Hammett]

Sorry, WISPs in the US48 to go to PR to help rebuild downed WISPs. 

Yes, they need to be able to get there first. Those already on the island are 
doing what they can until more supplies arrive. 




- 
Mike Hammett 
Intelligent Computing Solutions 

Midwest Internet Exchange 

The Brothers WISP 

- Original Message -

From: "Sean Donelan" <s...@donelan.com> 
To: nanog@nanog.org 
Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2017 4:13:33 PM 
Subject: Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of 

On Sun, 24 Sep 2017, Mike Hammett wrote: 
> There are a bunch of WISPs waiting to go rebuild, but waiting for the 
> clearance to do so. 

I'm not sure what clearances they are waiting for. If they are already in 
Puerto Rico, self-sufficient, and respect curfews and other emergency 
responders, they should be able to start local restoration and recovery 
activities. 

Several local ISPs and communication providers have announced open public 
WiFi hotspots outside their Puerto Rico offices during non-curfew hours. 
I've also seen reports from individuals volunteering on the Virigin 
Islands setting up internet access. 

If they are not already on the island, most Puerto Rican airports and 
ports are still closed to non-military or relief activities. There is no 
U.S. mail or freight service. Only one airport was open for limited 
commercial flights. They will need to bring everything neccessary to 
support themselves, including food, water, shelter, etc. 

Managing volunteers who want to help is difficult in all disasters. 
Unless they have training how to survive and take care of themselves in 
such a situation, letting in outside well-meaning volunteers sometimes 
become additional people who need to rescue. 

WISPs already on Puerto Rico or U.S. Virigin Islands, with resources for 
recovery and restoration of communications; can contact the FCC Operations 
Center, (202) 418-1122, fccoperationcen...@fcc.gov 

http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0920/DA-17-913A1.pdf
 

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

On Sun, 24 Sep 2017, Mike Hammett wrote:
There are a bunch of WISPs waiting to go rebuild, but waiting for the 
clearance to do so.


I'm not sure what clearances they are waiting for.  If they are already in 
Puerto Rico, self-sufficient, and respect curfews and other emergency 
responders, they should be able to start local restoration and recovery 
activities.


Several local ISPs and communication providers have announced open public 
WiFi hotspots outside their Puerto Rico offices during non-curfew hours. 
I've also seen reports from individuals volunteering on the Virigin 
Islands setting up internet access.


If they are not already on the island, most Puerto Rican airports and 
ports are still closed to non-military or relief activities. There is no 
U.S. mail or freight service. Only one airport was open for limited 
commercial flights.  They will need to bring everything neccessary to 
support themselves, including food, water, shelter, etc.


Managing volunteers who want to help is difficult in all disasters. 
Unless they have training how to survive and take care of themselves in 
such a situation, letting in outside well-meaning volunteers sometimes 
become additional people who need to rescue.


WISPs already on Puerto Rico or U.S. Virigin Islands, with resources for 
recovery and restoration of communications; can contact the FCC Operations 
Center, (202) 418-1122, fccoperationcen...@fcc.gov


http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0920/DA-17-913A1.pdf

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Mike Hammett]

>From one of my colleages that has a decent sized WISP in Puerto Rico. 

" Guys, we are ok, network hurt pretty bad… will need help " 

There are a bunch of WISPs waiting to go rebuild, but waiting for the clearance 
to do so. 

https://radar.qrator.net/as14979/providers#startDate=2017-08-09=2017-09-23=current
 

It looks like they're still online via Critical Hub Networks and Columbus 
Networks, but not Liberty. 


- 
Mike Hammett 
Intelligent Computing Solutions 

Midwest Internet Exchange 

The Brothers WISP 

- Original Message -

From: "Sean Donelan" <s...@donelan.com> 
To: nanog@nanog.org 
Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2017 2:28:35 PM 
Subject: Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of 

The ILEC, Claro, is reporting all 24 central offices in Puerto Rico are 
now operating on generators, and maintaining re-fueling operations. 

The CO's in the (San Juan?) metro area have voice, data and long distance 
service including to the mainland. 

The CO's elsewhere in Puerto Rico have only local voice service. The 
offices are isolated, with no long distance or inter-office data service. 

Although the CO's are operational, substantial outside plant is damaged. 
Which means most subscribers do not have service. Inter-office facilities 
outside the (San Juan) metro area are damaged, which means people with 
service in those areas can only make local calls. 

Wireless sites are still being evaluated. The Puerto Rico Transportation 
Department is providing road crews to clear/rebuild roads and escort 
cellular providers repair convoys to remote cell sites. 

The Puerto Rican government has not re-established communications with 
officials in the following municipalities: Aibonito, Jayuya, Lajas, 
Mayaguez, Quebradillas, Rincón, Sabana Grande, Vieques and Villalba. 

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

The ILEC, Claro, is reporting all 24 central offices in Puerto Rico are 
now operating on generators, and maintaining re-fueling operations.


The CO's in the (San Juan?) metro area have voice, data and long distance 
service including to the mainland.


The CO's elsewhere in Puerto Rico have only local voice service. The 
offices are isolated, with no long distance or inter-office data service.


Although the CO's are operational, substantial outside plant is damaged.
Which means most subscribers do not have service. Inter-office facilities 
outside the (San Juan) metro area are damaged, which means people with 
service in those areas can only make local calls.


Wireless sites are still being evaluated. The Puerto Rico Transportation 
Department is providing road crews to clear/rebuild roads and escort 
cellular providers repair convoys to remote cell sites.


The Puerto Rican government has not re-established communications with 
officials in the following municipalities: Aibonito, Jayuya, Lajas, 
Mayaguez, Quebradillas, Rincón, Sabana Grande, Vieques and Villalba.

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

According to PREPA Net, the fiber subsidary of the Electric Power 
Authority, the power system for the Punta las Marías submarine cable 
station is back in service after flooding.  I think Isla Verde and Punta 
las Marias refer to the same landing point.


I don't know the status of individual submarine cable systems using that 
landing station.


The Miramar and San Juan cable landing stations are also in service.

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

Reportedly most (All?) operational cellular carriers on Puerto Rico have 
activated "universal roaming" service.  All working towers will accept 
roaming connections from any phone from any carrier (or no service 
provider). You may need to turn the phone off & on so it scans for a 
working signal.


Roaming still requires a working cell tower. 48 counties and 
county-equivalents in Puerto Rico have 0% cell sites working. Less than 
25% of cell sites in the remaining counties are working. Capacity is 
extremely limited, so use SMS/Text rather than voice or data.


A side-effect of universal roaming is lack of billing, so expect carriers 
to announce they are waiving charges and overages in Puerto Rico.

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Javier J]

T-Mobile PR on twitter just posted that two of it's submarine cables are
out of service.

Claro PR Wireless (this is the ILEC in PR) website can't even be reached.

I am assuming this is due to power and submarine cable issues since I'm
sure t-mobile and many other providers are using the same cables.

Link to the post on twitter:
https://twitter.com/tmobilepr/status/911644083155869697

- Javier

On Fri, Sep 22, 2017 at 10:43 AM, Sean Donelan  wrote:

>
> Following up - there are three cable landing stations and 9 submarine
> cable systems connecting Puerto Rico.
>
> One of the cable landing stations experienced flooding, and shutdown its
> power system affecting some circuits.  I haven't been able to determine how
> many submarine cable systems are affected, since they share cable landing
> stations.
>
>

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Rubens Kuhl]

On Fri, Sep 22, 2017 at 11:43 AM, Sean Donelan  wrote:

>
> Following up - there are three cable landing stations and 9 submarine
> cable systems connecting Puerto Rico.
>
> One of the cable landing stations experienced flooding, and shutdown its
> power system affecting some circuits.  I haven't been able to determine how
> many submarine cable systems are affected, since they share cable landing
> stations.
>
>
And that shutdown affected Internet capacity throughout South America.


Rubens

Re: Hurricane Maria: Summary of communication status - and lack of

[Sean Donelan]

Following up - there are three cable landing stations and 9 submarine 
cable systems connecting Puerto Rico.


One of the cable landing stations experienced flooding, and shutdown its 
power system affecting some circuits.  I haven't been able to determine 
how many submarine cable systems are affected, since they share cable 
landing stations.