Internet Solutions (IS) yesterday suffered its third unplanned outage in three weeks, a problem which the company attributes to a breakdown of fibre circuits. Clients were also left without service a fourth time on 29 July, as the same circuits were taken out of commission for emergency repair work.
Yesterday`s outage left clients with no service from 1pm to 6pm, and the Internet service provider says it is battling to solve the problem.
The problem lies in the connection that runs through Spain, says IS communication and change manager Peter Casalis. "IS contracted with Telkom SA and AT&T respectively for the provisioning of these three circuits (an STM1). These circuits are mapped across different cable systems managed by different telcos. From SA, the circuits operate on the SAT3 undersea fibre cable, and are connected in the Canary Islands with the PenCan6 undersea fibre cable and some terrestrial cable components to Conil on the Spanish mainland, where the last connection en route to the US, to the Columbus 3 undersea fibre cable (crossing the north Atlantic), is made.
"The Spanish component, where all three outages over the last three weeks have occurred, is under the management of Telefonica. Telkom SA and AT&T have contracted with Telefonica for the connecting service between SAT3 and Columbus 3."
Yesterday`s failure saw three international circuits fail simultaneously, says Casalis. "It`s very unusual for that to happen. We are reviewing our solution. It has been very detrimental to our clients, and it is completely unacceptable to us. Up until now, it has been a fantastic service."
While there are people specifically to blame for the outages, Casalis says there are certain parties that have made solving the issue more difficult and time-consuming. "We feel that [Spanish telco] Telefonica have been somewhat tardy and we have battled to get information from them."
The spate of recent outages has elicited strong responses from IS clients, says Casilas. "Most of the people have actually been very sympathetic, and say they appreciate the challenges of running a national service like this. Others have been agitated, and have quite rightly said that something has to be done."
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