Earthquake "SAF 3 Cable break"

F

fragtion

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Hey guys,
Anybody know the detail behind the SAF 3 Cable break?
Since early this morning i was getting incredible pings of between 170-250 to UK/FR/DE/BE servers (195 to clarity.jolt.co.uk), and hence enjoyed that prime time playing counter-strike on overseas servers, until at about 10am if i remember correctly, I got disconnected from anything international and couldn't browse for about 5 minutes.
Everything then came back, but pings were insane (525 stable to clarity.jolt.co.uk) and browsing any american-related sites was literally impossible (i'm not capped)... international browsing seems back to normal but the pings are still disasterous? or is it just me?.

Anybody know whats going on or when the SAFE/SAT3 fibres will be re-activated, etc etc?

according to http://www.noticeboard.saix.net/ :

Severity 1 Network Faults latest
Call Reference ID : STT000000003806
Failure Type : Network Failure
Problem Description : Rosebank-New York Access Circuit Failure
Time Down : 26 Dec 2004, 07:00:00
Impact : All clients will experience slow responses to International Sites.
Site : Rosebank
Services Affected : International Connectivity

Updates : 26 Dec 2004, 07:46:49 premlar
Our technicians are attending to the fault.

26 Dec 2004, 08:10:35 premlar
SAF 3 Cable break due to Earth quake in South East Asia. International technicians busy investigating

26 Dec 2004, 12:20:58 premlar
Technicians from our overseas provider are still busy attending.

26 Dec 2004, 17:02:41 premlar
Technicians from our overseas provider are still busy attending.

Cause of Failure : N/A
Status : New


Update: Looks like they've fixed it according to SAIX Notice Board, but the pings are still pathetic...
 
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I don't mean to be rude but there was a freaking earth quake and tidal wave! I really hope their first priority is to get the net working proper for you 2 play games....
 
lol obviously.

I'm just curios on whats happening, this stuff interests me. I'd like to know for example how we're connected to the rest of the world at the moment if the cable is broken, for example? If anyone's rude its you... i was just seeking information on the situation. All i mentioned about games was the fact that I was playing overseas when the pings were an incredible 200 from ADSL, something i haven't seen telkom do since I first bought ADSL. I had no idea at the time that an earthquake had destroyed the cable.
 
Yeah seen that site.
Apparently SAFE broke at malaysia...
Thats when the pings went to 150-250 from SA-UK, obviously because of the relieved traffic because SAFE wasnt utilizing any of SAT3's bandwidth?
Funny thing is, pings are insane now (525 to jolt.co.uk) and the SAFE break was repaired - am I the only one with such bad pings? Perhaps they transferred us onto satellite? Because by the looks of things we're not going through Telia UK, but New York...

Tracing route to jolt.co.uk [195.149.21.11]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 16 ms 16 ms 15 ms rrba-146-64-01.telkomadsl.co.za [165.146.64.1]
2 16 ms 15 ms 15 ms rrba-ip-er-1-fe-8-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.11.146]
3 431 ms 431 ms 431 ms ash-ip-dir-equinix-pos-6-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.9.146]
4 432 ms 432 ms 431 ms pos2-0.cr02.ash01.pccwbtn.net 63.218.94.17]
5 735 ms 520 ms 520 ms ge3-1.br01.frf02.pccwbtn.net [63.218.14.54]
6 524 ms 523 ms 524 ms fft-1.nildram.net [80.81.192.237]
7 524 ms 524 ms 524 ms jolt-gw.nildram.net [195.149.20.214]
8 525 ms 525 ms 525 ms clarity.jolt.co.uk [195.149.21.11]

Trace complete.
 
freeek - well, I dunno about you - I kinda telling myself I'm all devastated and sad and all that, but I know it's just BS that I think I feel that way. If I had relatives or friends there that I loved and all that, sure, I'd be concerned.

It is terrible, sure, but hey - probably 5000 people died in South Africa today from one thing or another, life goes on and praise that higher being that you and your loved ones are safe !

I find it more horrifyingly facinating than anything else - I've been following the story out of morbid curiosity.

I can't pretend I'm really give a ***** because if I truly did, I'd be on the next plane helping out the relief forces !
 
I SMS'ed some friends in Phuket yesterday and got a prompt reply. I was relieved that they were OK but fascinated that the Celular Network had survived and was fast.
 
bb_matt said:
It is terrible, sure, but hey - probably 5000 people died in South Africa today from one thing or another, life goes on and praise that higher being that you and your loved ones are safe !
Click to expand...
The SAPS statistics show 50 homicides per day in South Africa (based on reported incidents). Then you have to add those that die from natural causes...
 
caroper said:
I SMS'ed some friends in Phuket yesterday and got a prompt reply. I was relieved that they were OK but fascinated that the Celular Network had survived and was fast.
Click to expand...

Off topic but damn, still can't belive they named a place phucket, that is hillerious!!!!!!
 
It is a silent "H", but then again it is the world capital for ................ :eek:
 
Anybody seen the movie "The Beach"? That is roughly where the Tsunami hit. The earthquake had the power of about 1000 Hiroshima nuclear bombs if I heard correctly. The plate of the earth's crust that was on the down turn where the two plates crushed eachother, went down quite a few kilometres into the earths nether region. Around 500 km's

This site will give you guys an idea of how it all comes together...

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/savageearth/hellscrust/

Now imagine our poor fibre cable getting mangled down there! :) Interesting but inlikely thought.... Imagine the commication! Or perhaps not...

Cheers
Ant
 
Funny thing is, pings are insane now (525 to jolt.co.uk) and the SAFE break was repaired - am I the only one with such bad pings? Perhaps they transferred us onto satellite?
Click to expand...

Who said its repaired? AFAIK it takes them a couple of days to repair it given the work that goes into it. Just because SAIX closed the ticket because it isnt their problem, or it was inactive for 48 hours doesnt mean its fixed :P

Prahaps the traffic is still going through the other routers and its more busy.
 
The safe/sat-3 site says it takes them 24 hours with a ship on constant standby and some splitter box onboard, but then I don't think they have many dead bodies, earthquakes & tsunamis to try and deal with at the same time.

Surely a tracert should be able to confirm which cable is being used?
 
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