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Tens of thousands of Oceanic Time Warner Cable customers across Hawaii were without Internet, cable, and phone service for up to 14 hours after an undersea TW Telecom fiber cable was cut near Lanai at around 1:10am Tuesday.
While broadband users on Kauai and Oahu managed to be rerouted after a two hour outage, residents on Maui and the Big Island endured more than a half-day outage for all of Time Warner Cable services.
The affected cable experienced an outage off Lanai Island
The impact of the fiber cut also disrupted over-the-air broadcasting — many feeds to Hawaii’s translator stations, which extend signals from Honolulu across the Hawaiian Islands, were also sent over the affected cable.
When Time Warner customers in Hawaii woke up Tuesday morning, many were left with fewer than 20 cable signals still working — those delivered via satellite, and no phone or broadband service.
The affected fiber cable is laid in water 3,000 feet deep, which means it will take weeks to manage repairs. The cable company managed to obtain alternate connections, and some criticized the operator for not having backup service available immediately.
Restoration of services were complete around noon Tuesday for the Big Island, with Maui County getting phone and Internet service back by 3pm.
Hawaiian Telcom, Hawaii’s largest telephone company, said it wasn’t affected by the outage.
The Star-Advertiser reports the fiber cable is rented by Oceanic to communicate with their other cable operations throughout Hawaii:
Oceanic Time Warner rents bandwidth (data transmission capacity) from the fiber-optic cable, co-owned by Colorado-based TW Telecom and Wavecom Solutions, formerly Pacific Lightnet. TW Telecom was part of Time Warner Cable but became an independent entity in 2008.
Oceanic Time Warner is among 144 Maui firms that rent bandwidth from that section of the cable. That section went online in 1997, Miyake said.
When the cable was cut, Internet protocol addresses did not know which route to take back to the mainland. Oceanic crews had to reroute connections through alternate cables connecting the islands.
“We have a daisy-chain fiber connection that connects all the islands together,” said Norman Santos, Oceanic’s vice president of operations. “The main transmission point for Oceanic Cable is here on Oahu.”
Oceanic promises they will be developing additional redundancy in their network in the future to make sure they can restore service more rapidly in the event of a future disruption.
Typically, Oceanic Time Warner Cable does not give refunds unless service is out for a full 24 hours -and- customers specifically requests credit, but the company is debating whether to grant an exception this time.
“We’re going to make a determination as to if and how blanket credits will be authorized, if individual credits will be authorized, but we’re going to do the right thing,” Norman Santos with Oceanic Time Warner Cable told KHON-TV.
Customers can be in a better position to receive that credit by contacting Oceanic today and asking for it before you (and perhaps they) forget.
http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Time Warner Hawaii Outage 7-27-10.flvEvery major television station in Hawaii covered the extensive service outage. Here is a compilation of reports from KGMB, KHNL, KHON, and KITV-TV regarding the outage, its cause and impact. (14 minutes)
Other stories of interest:
- Time Warner Cable Suffers Another Phone Outage — Second In Three Months in the Northeast
- [Update 2] Time Warner Cable: Major Road Runner/Digital Phone Outage in Northeastern U.S.
- Time Warner Cable CEO Reports Basic Cable Suffers While Broadband Gains, Still Thinks ‘Usage Based Pricing’ is the Future
- Vandals Cut Major Hawaiian Telcom Cable in Waipahu Cutting Off 1,100 Customers from Phone, Internet Service
- Windstream Suffers Major Landline Failure in Nebraska; Several Counties Lose Phone, 911 Service
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