KEY POINTS:
So I was wondering why my Xtra broadband connection appeared to be running very slow today access to offshore websites was at a snails pace throughout parts of the day. There were lots of "Oops there seems to be a problem" messages from Google as Gmail had trouble
sending and receiving mail.
Then a couple of readers pointed me to this message on the Xtra website:
"A hurricane force storm battering Washington State, Oregon and parts of Northern California since yesterday is believed to have damaged an onshore section of the Southern Cross Cable Network. This means that access to some websites may be slow or difficult until the weather and flooding clears and work crews in the US are able to make repairs."
Okay, so that may explain that, I'm glad to be getting any international connectivity seeing as the Southern Cross cable is the one big fat pipe to New Zealand. It's ironic that this damage has occurred as the issue of building a second undersea cable for international data capacity is elevated to the political level with communications minister David Cunliffe's comments at the Digital Summit last week that the Government may be willing to chip in to help build a rival to Southern Cross.
If you're interested in the route internet traffic to New Zealand takes to get here you may want to look at this useful ISP map. You might be surprised at the reliance so many ISPs have on the one provider for connectivity.
Partial damage of the Southern Cross cable close to the west coast of the US is one thing - imagine if it was taken out in the middle of the Pacific, or the Tasman. I wonder exactly what the plan B would be? Googling via satellite? Actually, the Southern Cross Cable is basically a big loop, so if one side breaks, they can send traffic the other way, though I'm sure there'd be some disruption to service as there appears to have been today.
While a new cable is pretty much regarded by all (except the Southern Cross Cable Network) as a must have, there are also some innovative moves afoot to reduce the need to go out to the world to get the information we need. Local internet providers for instance are increasing storing commonly needed bits of software say a Microsoft patch, on local servers - Akamai is a specialist in this area. They host the software here, so you go to a server in Auckland or Wellington for what you need, rather than the US or Asia.
I've seen the box in Los Angeles at the Telecom data centre where most of Xtra's and Telecom's wholesale customers' internet traffic goes through. I joked with the engineer there about what would happen if I pulled out one of those little yellow Ethernet plugs. Maybe the New Zealand internet would go down. I could tell by his expression it wasn't such a silly suggestion.