Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

If we limit it to issues that the ISP owns, then I'd say yes.

What does the ISP have that can cause 9 hours worth of outages throughout the year? The only thing I could think of is the ISP being targeted by a massive DDOS attack.




What does the ISP have that can cause 9 hours worth of outages throughout the year

They have the real world -- ice storms, trees blown down by wind storms, power outages, backhoe outages, etc.

A tree took out internet in my neighborhood for 2 days, others had longer outages since it was a big storm and it took a while to repair.


It's easy to have a single outage over 9 hours if they wait 8 hours to send somebody out.


lol, well yes I guess :D.

I guess I'm really just spoiled. In the last 10 years I think I've only really experienced like 1 or 2 outages caused by my current ISP and they were resolved within the hour. My assumption is that like most people, all the ISP equipment is buried so the only things that can really go wrong are either at the colo or the home (like a router that dies). Having a line cut is simply a hyper rare event.

On the other hand, my overhead powerlines have caused most of my outages. An idiot crashing into the telephone poll has made my power less reliable than my internet.


Having a line in the ground won't save you when there are wild backhoes in your biome.


Not every year, but Rogers in Canada managed to black itself out across digital TV, corp circuits, home internet, mobile, 3rd party internet providers that used their lines, their own employees, and cellular for the good part of a day (from like 5AM until midnight) nationwide.

Their CTO was on holiday and was unreachable because their phone went into SOS mode and they just assumed it was them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Rogers_Communications_out...

In 2021, their mobile network went down for like 9 hours: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/rogers-identifies-root-caus...

The Nashville AT&T explosion didn't take out the data lines, but took out the electric service. Then the gas company cutoff the gas lines so their backup generators couldn't run (wiki says it was due to fire/water damage, so maybe I have that part wrong). The facility didn't have roll-up generator connections, so they had to figure out how to wire them in at a big time cost.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nashville_bombing

In 2003, the "Slammer" worm slowed down ISP's core routers (including Rogers' to the point of not working anymore) with the quantity of small packets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_Slammer


An ice storm taking down a utility pole will blow that out of the water for several years.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: