Undersea Cable Break Disrupts Life In Northern Mariana Islands

An anonymous reader writes: The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands experienced a devastating undersea cable break on Wednesday, with phone, Internet, SMS, banking services, the National Weather Service office, and airliners all being affected. The US territory depends on a single undersea fiber optic connection with Guam for its connectivity to the outside world (except for a backup microwave link, which was itself damaged during a recent storm). While services are in the process of being restored, this may be a prime example of the need for reliable backup systems in our "always connected" mindset.

Comments

Re:This isn't the first cable to be cut.

[Harlequin80]

No one is behind this. There was a typhoon and then a series of storms.

To put this into perspective there are around 50k people living on the island and its link runs through difficult terrain. It is about 100km from Guam itself hence why it could use a microwave backup. Honestly this is about as surprising as a small country town getting cut off by a back hoe hitting their cable.

Or...

[SuperKendall]

this may be a prime example of the need for reliable backup systems in our "always connected" mindset.

Or it may be a prime example how helpless many systems are with even a small break in connectivity, and point to a strong need for all systems to be built with robust (or any!) offline modes...

Airlines being affected for example is bullshit - the schedules for example are all known months ahead of time. That the systems had not cached everything needed for a few weeks at least verges on criminal. Incoming planes can carry USB sticks with updated manifests and other data...