A Fragile Existence

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The two latest cable failures from a few days ago. Thankfully they are closer to Europe so only just over a week to be repaired. @whatsup was teasing on Twitter about internet outages with the lockdown period and they happen for us regularly these days. We are up and running right now, but it is temporary and battle to watch something on streaming which I had planned to do as that is my entire entertainment set up these days.

Lock down starts and now we have internet outages again.Second day of the lock down we were met with that spinning circle you get on your screens which is not a good sign.Don't worry they say as it will be repaired by Saturday the 4th. That is quick compared to previous outages as normally it is a date with a different month to the one you are currently in.

I think this tells you that you may be living in the arse end of the world and nobody really cares. Little to no urgency and taking your time springs to mind. The ship they are using cannot go in seas with a swell higher than 6 meters so what good is that?
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Repaired cable that the country relies on. Doesn't look to advanced technologically wise and very strong either. Looks like a sleeve has gone over the repair and that is it. No hi tech shit going on here.
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Like most countries around the world the fiber travels from a central point over 1000's of miles to eventually end up at your home or office.We areall connected this way yet obviously countries like the states have many more lines than our hokey pokey one. This just goes to show you how vulnerable the entire infrastructure really is.


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Breakages apparently can be caused by a number of things including a short. Personally i didn't know fiber could be shorted out causing a fire. The other possible cause was an underwater volcano just off the Congo River Delta. Honestly what chance have they got for keeping this going as a permanent solution.


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The old Orange Telecoms Network vessel looks a lot bigger than the current one being used.Just checked and is nearly 40 m in length smaller and no wonder they don't go out in rough seas.

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The vessel took a month to repair two breakages in the cable and now we have another two breaks a month later. Almost worthwhile having the contract to repair the line and pay people to break it at regular time intervals. When I imagined a cable I was thinking of something that would have a bullet proof type casing and not something that I see in these photographs. In my head I am thinking of fishing trawlers or boat anchors or almost anything could break this.

For something that is carrying data in such an advanced industry the supply part has been left lagging and more thought needs to be applied to this area. You would think they would be using a state of the art type cable at least that was indestructible. How many billions would be lost if the internet went down for two weeks across Europe or the States?



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Holy smokes sir cryptoandcoffee! What an amateur operation. Hey what happened to the old ship, in that photo it looks like it's on fire.

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