‘Incident’ on NZ’s Only International Internet Link
November 10th, 2012Everyone knows that you don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.
In New Zealand, however, the whole damn show is A) dependent on a single submarine cable operator that is B) majority owned by Telecom New Zealand, a company that has been slapped with the largest ever fine for anti-competitive conduct in New Zealand.
This public menace is holding all ISP’s in the country hostage AND it’s a single point of failure for our international communications.
Ah well, at least John Key smiles a lot.
Via: New Zealand Herald:
The Southern Cross Cable Network – New Zealand’s only international internet link – experienced an “incident” in the early hours of this morning which affected some customers, a spokesperson has confirmed.
According to a statement from Labour’s communications spokesperson Clare Curran she had become aware of a “catastrophic failure” at a Southern Cross landing station in New South Wales this morning during a software change.
Southern Cross’ director of sales and marketing Ross Pfeffer said there had been an “incident” on the cable network
“There was an incident in the early hours of the morning during an upgrade situation, which affected a couple of customers for a short period,” Pffeffer said.
In a statement, Southern Cross said Labour’s media release was “misleading and inaccurate”
…
Proponents of a failed Pacific Fibre project, which hoped to build a second internet cable out of the country, argued another pipe was essential to ensure New Zealand remained connected to the world if an outage occurred on Southern Cross.
Curran said the Government – which shot down the idea that public funds should be used to fund a Pacific Fibre-type piece of infrastructure – needed to address New Zealand’s issue of international connectivity.
“This shows the Government’s inaction and disregard for our international infrastructure could have equally catastrophic consequences for New Zealand. This is a crisis for New Zealand.” Curran said.
“Without international connectivity, our financial system and a large percentage of business would be severely affected…Issues of capacity and affordability of data pale into insignificance when you consider the havoc that could be wrecked by a significant outage.
“This is a matter of grave importance for New Zealand,” she said.
Kim Dotcom to the rescue!
*sigh*