In the midst of bad fires in the ACT we had this:
AWS outage cripples ACT Emergency Services Agency website as Canberra bushfire rages
Wobble drags on through Thursday
The ACT Government’s Emergency Services Agency (ESA) has attributed a website outage that hit in the middle of a rapidly escalating bushfire between Canberra Airport and Queanbeyan to Thursday’s AWS outage in Sydney.
Capping off an already bad day for AWS after significant availability problems hit its Sydney region, the ESA took to twitter to redirect Canberrans to Facebook and local media to obtain current information on the fire hitting the national capital that remains at a watch and act level.
The outage hit as Canberra Airport was shut to commercial traffic because of the fire, with residents around Oaks Estate warned to get out of the road of the oncoming blaze after two fires merged and engulfed a rubbish tip.
It is still unclear why the ESA website was hit by a single point of failure, however the blaze, known as the Beard fire, is burning close to the industrial suburb of Fyshwick which houses several data centres.
More here:
Also we had this:
Telecoms network resilience at time of disasters under review post-bushfires
Telecommunications network resilience in natural disasters like Australia’s recent bushfire has been under the microscope by the Federal Government, telcos and executives from across the telecoms sector, with agreement to put in place long-term initiatives to further bolster resilience of the networks.
Senior telco executives and executives from across the telecoms sector met with the Minister for Communications Paul Fletcher to review the response by telcos and the industry to the bushfire disaster.
The Minister commended the telcos and their staff for working to restore services as quickly as possible, as well as providing relief packages to affected areas. The NSW Telco Authority noted the telcos had been exceptionally responsive during the crisis.
And Minister Fletcher said the Government welcomed the actions taken by the telecommunications industry to support Australians affected by the bushfires, including:
- Telstra deployment of Cell on Wheels temporary facilities to support emergency services operations and communities in affected areas.
- Optus deployment of Satellite Small Cells (SatCats) and Cells on Wheels to support emergency services and provide coverage to impacted communities
- Vodafone deployment of new transmission links and generators to restore services along the NSW South Coast
- Telstra enabling its national payphone network for free calls and the use of its Telstra Air payphones as free Wi-Fi hotspots in bushfire-affected regions.
- Distribution of Telstra satellite phones to emergency services and communities.
- NBN Co deployment of Road Muster trucks to several evacuation and relief centres, offering free Wi-Fi as well as news and weather updates. These included evacuation centres at Hanging Rock Sports Oval in Batemans Bay and Malua Bay Surf Club on the NSW South Coast.
- NBN Co installation of Sky Muster satellite dishes to provide free Wi-Fi hotspots and established mobile device charging facilities at 29 evacuation centres in NSW, Victoria and South Australia – at its peak supporting around 5,000 affected residents, business owners and support staff.
The Minister noted that the meeting addressed both the immediate response to the impact of the bushfires on communications services, as well as initiatives for the long term.
More here:
And this:
NBN Co Sky Muster outage extends past 24 hours
Impacting "multiple geographic areas".
NBN Co is now over 24 hours into an outage of its Sky Muster satellite service that is affecting “some” or a “portion” of its 96,385 users nationwide.
The problems started at about 10am AEDT Monday and were continuing through Tuesday morning after restoration works by NBN Co technicians overnight were unsuccessful.
Affected services appear as working on the NBN modem but can’t connect to the internet.
The impact is being felt by Sky Muster users connected through all retail service providers (RSPs), including SkyMesh, Harbour ISP, Activ8me, Ipstar and Bordernet Internet.
Current estimates put the number of impacted users at between 3000 and 4000, however this could not be independently verified at the time of publication.
It is still unclear what has caused the extended outage. Investigations by technicians are continuing, though some advisories now note the root cause has been identified.
More here:
and lastly this:
Remote Central Australian communities empty as Telstra outages shut down essential services
24 January, 2020
Widespread Telstra outages in several Aboriginal communities in a remote area of Central Australia are shutting down stores, putting lives at risk and preventing people from accessing their money, according to community members.
Key points:
- Up to 2,000 people were affected by a Telstra outage that lasted more than 48 hours
- Community members were forced to leave town because they could not buy food
- Telstra says the problem was due to a mains power outage as well as faulty hardware that had to be replaced
The region north-west of Alice Springs is home to 2,000 people and in the past week has experienced outages lasting more than 48 hours.
Telstra has told the ABC that the problem has been resolved, but in Arlparra — one of the Aboriginal communities affected — store manager Annie Bremmer said her business had been without internet access since Wednesday.
Many members in the community have their income managed by Centrelink through the basics card, which allows people to send money directly to approved stores.
But without internet, retailers are unable to access these transfers.
"People have been unable to pay for food using their Basics card since Wednesday, and we are very worried it won't be fixed before the long weekend — it's very serious," Ms Bremmer said.
Store co-manager Gary Bremmer estimated the blackout had so far cost their business, and the Aboriginal community that owned it, $30,000 in lost revenue.
"[Our customers have] kids to feed, and we are being as patient and accessible as possible without compromising the business, but it's not good," he said.
"I'd say about 60 per cent of our customers have left town because of this."
More here:
And this does not cover all the damage in Victoria and Southern NSW.
What is totally clear is that if you introduce a digital service you need a properly operation manual backup.
Have remote area people starving because of telco failure really is not on!
The resilience plan is vital and urgent.
David.
1 comment:
Have you seen all those howls of protest that My Health Record is not available because of power and communications outages?
Neither have I.
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