Categorized | Sci-Tech

Oceanic Time Warner Cable services out statewide in Hawaii early Tuesday morning

An Oceanic Time-Warner worker checks cable lines in Hawaiian Paradise Park just after midnight Tuesday (July 27).

By Baron Sekiya | Hawaii 24/7

Approximately 400,000 customers statewide were left without service early Tuesday after an undersea fiber-optic cable suffered a break, which will take more than three weeks to repair.

Much of the service was restored by Tuesday afternoon.

According to Wavecom Solutions, which is part-owner of the cable:

“We have a fiber cut affecting Maui, Lanai, and Big Island. We are working to restore as much service is possible while contacting all customers impacted. If you have not been called regarding this, please call our Service Operations Center for the current status. We appreciate your understanding as we work through this outage.”

The cable between the islands was severed about 30 miles south of Kihei and about 3,000 feet below sea level.

Service was lost to Kauai and Oahu for about two hours, while Maui and the Big Island reported cable TV down for up to 14 hours and Internet out for up to 13 hours.

(Posted at 1:15 a.m.) — Oceanic Time Warner Cable services experienced an outage statewide in Hawaii just before midnight Monday (July 26).

The outage affects both their high speed internet services and home telephone services. Oceanic asks that customers do not reboot their cable modem boxes at this time and that they have crews working on the problem.

There is no estimate on when service will be restored. For an update on the system status in Hawaii call (808) 625-8282

Update 7:28 a.m.
Oceanic’s status hotline reports that only Big Island, Maui, Molokai and Kauai continue to be impacted by the cable outage with Oahu working.

Posts on Twitter say an fiber optic submarine cable may have been cut, which caused the outage though that hasn’t been confirmed.

Update 11:26 a.m.
Mobi PCS and their Hele Wireless service reports that because they are tied into Oceanic Time Warner customers on the Big Island and Maui experienced outages of internet and voice services. Hele Wireless in Pahoa was down, currently Hele Wireless is working in Hilo.

Mobi PCS confirms that a fiber optic submarine cable used by Oceanic Time Warner was cut this morning which caused the outage.

Update 8:42 p.m.
From Oceanic Status page

Tuesday July 27th, 2010 at 7:50 PM

Due to a network issue high speed internet customers may experience slower that usual connnecton speeds.

Oahu
All services are working properly.

Hilo
All services are working properly.

Kona
All services are working properly.

Maui
All services are working properly.

Molokai/Lanai
All services are working properly

Kauai
All services are working properly.

Time Warner's status page showing Hawaii outage showing 12:10 a.m. as outage start time.

Big Island Oceanic Customers:
Video Cable 48,000
Internet 31,000
Phone 10,000

Hawaiian Telcom services not affected by undersea cable cut

MEDIA RELEASE

Hawaiian Telcom services have not been affected by an undersea cable cut that has reportedly disrupted communication and video services from other providers since early this morning.

Some conflicting media reports have cited island-wide Internet outages on Maui and the Big Island.

“To assist residents and businesses of Hawaii Island, Maui, Molokai and Lanai whose communication services have been disrupted, Hawaiian Telcom has committed to making a portion of its own interisland fiber optic cable network available on loan to the affected provider during the cable repair process,” said Hawaiian Telcom President and CEO Eric Yeaman.

— Find out more:
1-877-91-ALOHA, www.wavecomsolutions.com/support
www.oceanic.com

56 Responses to “Oceanic Time Warner Cable services out statewide in Hawaii early Tuesday morning”

  1. Busy SIgnal says:

    My internet is back up (Oahu). Status line says the neighbor islands are still down.

  2. Alf says:

    Wish they would tell us what's going on. Can't even log onto the oceanic website.

    • Bart says:

      I have an old dial-up modem, for backup, and ironically, the only page on their site that doesn’t load is the “status page”…. Me thinks they are covering up!
      All they have to do it put up a blurb. I am not a networking expert, but if it is a serious mistake, just say so! Why make it look like a cover-up?…. It is always best to come clean…. Admit that the Hawaii technical guys can’t figure it out. Or, not!

    • Duh says:

      It's because the services are down, duh!

  3. Tim says:

    I can't wait to hear who's responsible for taking out cable statewide! Terrrorist? Or idiot construction worker? Is there no back up system? Is Time Warner as inept as BP?

  4. Still out at 9am in Kohala, at least I was able to get the RR network status using my wife’s iPhone and knew it was not our equipment.

  5. Jman says:

    10am and we're back working on the Big Isle!

  6. Critical-Thinker says:

    This sure puts a stick in the spoke. So much for the advantage of bundling. It is very unnerving to realize that Time Warner has absolutely no contingency plan. Especially for businesses who have consolidated and bundled their respective media and communications with them. I wonder if we will see any "prorated" billing to reflect the outage and subsequent catastrophic ramifications in regard to businesses. Imagine owning a retail store and you are not able to run credit cards and or receive phone orders etc.

  7. Jeff says:

    If a deep water fiber line was cut what can they do? It runs 2500 miles long. It sucks and all but what can you do?

  8. Bree Kirk says:

    I also think that it’s a cover up of denile of service DoS attack. When and IF the service comes back on watch out people I think that computers are going to crash be prepared for this people. To be honest last nite before services went down I was on my iPhone using wi fi at the house and looked up DOS commands but what came up DoS look it up!!! it’s pretty freaky I’m pretty intune with computers and pretty sure my search had something to do with the DoS attack seriously people look it up!!!! It’s like a chain from one program possibly this iPhone program linked my modem to Time Warner and from the web site with a bug, than spred like wild fire to all the ISP servers in Hawaii anyways we should not be paying for 1Mbps it’s redonkulas our service should be faster like in china and Korea 50 Mbps that’s fast like it should be for $35.00 a month… K alohaz and mahalos…DoS attack!

  9. juli says:

    Just switch to Hawiian Telcom. Atleast if you have an emergency their phone lines will work. If you have no power with Oceanic phone service, you have no phone service for emergency calls, but with HawaiianTel you will. My bundle with hawaiiantel is 65.99 for 7megs of DSL internet and unlimited long distance phone.

  10. Rdm says:

    In Kona still out, guess I’ll get laid till it’s fixed

  11. Bree says:

    The United States Computer Emergency Response Team defines symptoms of denial-of-service attacks to include:

    Unusually slow network performance (opening files or accessing web sites)
    Unavailability of a particular web site
    Inability to access any web site
    Dramatic increase in the number of spam emails received—(this type of DoS attack is considered an e-mail bomb)[3]
    Denial-of-service attacks can also lead to problems in the network ‘branches’ around the actual computer being attacked. For example, the bandwidth of a router between the Internet and a LAN may be consumed by an attack, compromising not only the intended computer, but also the entire network.

  12. chron says:

    anyone else not getting any cellphone service either? I dont know why this would effect cell signal, but i havent gotten any service today

  13. Rose says:

    On Big Island in Kona! I’m getting Internet on my iPhone, but TV and computers are out!

  14. lee says:

    In Kona…still no TV or internet, though I keep reading reports that services have been restored. I work out of my home, so this is really cramping my style :)

  15. Bt says:

    Kailua town on the big island. Service us still down, you cant get through on the phones (non-Internet phones) and nothing on their website to indicate if there’s an estimate. iPhone Internet works for now thru AT&T’s 3G service

  16. RACSAC on Maui says:

    12:50 pm on Tues, Still no RR service on Maui and MobiPCS Hele is on and off bec. they are linked to RR Broadband.

  17. john doe says:

    On the big island in keaau and no service. I am on my phone right now. I need the internet for work!

  18. kala says:

    Still down on Maui as of 1:22 pm 7/27. I work from home too, and this is terrible. We're using a backup system (dialup) to access the 'net, but it's painfully slow (how did we ever live without broadband?).
    @juli – we had Hawaiian Telcom DSL for years, but we moved house in Dec '07 and they couldn't service us in our new location. It took them 2-3 months to realize that even though our account was on and active, our connection speed was slower than dialup (yes, I told them numerous times). I would prefer to be connected via the old-fashioned copper wires, but we were forced to switch to OTW/RR/cable. We declined OTW's offer of a bundled digital phone line, and now we're extremely glad of that decision.
    It's ridiculous that OTW cannot even be reached by phone – the only phone number we found is OTW's "System Status Hotline" at 625-8282 (it's a recording).
    Update (and synchronicity watch): the OTW cable guys just pulled into our driveway in two vans to hook up service for our newly moved-in neighbor – the techs were quite friendly and apologetic – they are doing business as usual and said that there has been no service for any of the folks they've hooked up so far today.

  19. CCN says:

    Back online now in Keauhou!

  20. Mauimurph says:

    1:30 pm – still no connection on Maui. Thank goodness for my aircard. I agree with other comments; I can't believe there is no contingency plan and RR's phones don't even work.

  21. pops says:

    can anyone verify is broadcast tv also out on the big island..havent been able to find anything about it but mine seems to be out…alohas

  22. kala says:

    Update Maui 3:33 PM: our service is back.
    I hear that HawaiianTelcom is sharing their fiber optic line with OTW/RR. Mahalo, HTC.

  23. Frustrated says:

    I agree with Critical-Thinker. I JUST bundled everything (until last month I had Hawaiian Telcom's DSL and phone) and now THIS happens? Nice. I work from home over the internet and this cost me a day of work and inconvenienced my clients who are all on the Mainland. They should give me a free month for today's lost income, not just prorate the bill. It has been a frustrating day. I couldn't even call and find out what was going on since my land line is cable now, and the cell network was either busy or immediately dropped my call. So for a long time I could not even communicate to my clients that I was not getting their e-mails.

  24. Chris says:

    We've been able to use our T-mobile cell phones without interruption.

    In Kona (near Seaview Circle) our connection was 'restored' about 12:15 PM.

  25. Lei says:

    Is phone service on Oahu supposed to be working now?? Because my phone is not.

  26. bwhite says:

    Waikiki internet is working but using speedtest.net I see a very slow connection to the mainland. Local server Lava.net is fine.. but choosing a west coast server is only a fraction of the speed. Called a friend and he tested the same thing…

  27. PuNa says:

    relax people! There was a damaged fiber 3000ft in the ocean. Oceanic is doing everything they can. Things happen… with ANY company. I am a customer of Oceanic and have been for the past 20 years! I dont recall anything this major happening in the past.. This is just one unfortunate day for them. One bad thing happens… and they get bashed! WTF?? Think about how they provide good services for the other 364 days 0f the year…

  28. Aaron Stene says:

    The reason why the speeds are slow is because the connections had to be re-routed to Los Angeles back to Hawaii. OTW will will likely have to lease fiber from HawTel or Sandwich Isles/Paniolo until permanant repairs can be done. The same applies to Wavecom Solutions and TW Telecom since they co-own this fiber.

  29. Small Boto Lauren says:

    Kauai isn't working properly I only get download speeds of 30.0kb's

  30. James C says:

    I can't play modernwarefare 2 with 14 kbps.

  31. Cory says:

    Weirdness began much earlier than published accounts… I am a computer repairman on Kauai… many modems (first Time-Warner) began malfunctioning Monday (if not earlier).

    At first, I suspected coordinated Denial of Service attacks had begun (which may still be the case)… I am still unsure of the exact cause of the problem, but at this time 10:38pm (Tuesday night) problems still persist with HawaiianTel servers, and Verizon servers… especially when it comes to normal propagation of domain names… this is anything but ‘normal’.

    Repairs are not complete, re-routing of services is taking place.

    At this time it is quite likely that many servers and optics lines are being shared and ‘switched’ around to obtain some level of service (controlled crashes, re-boots, etc) for each of the companies involved–from land-lines and cable, to cell-phones.

    Keep checking your internet services, as you will find that certain websites on the internet are not available to Hawaii (or your particular island), or if they are, they will sometimes (throughout this incident) be ‘older’ cached versions of a site… or, they will be available for a short while and then go back offline again for a few hours, back and forth… this is especially true of sites which have been recently added to the internet (new domains, or recent DNS name server changes)– they may not function correctly due to DNS name server issues (domains not propagating from the mainland properly).

    Yeah, ‘eventually’ (note that a severed cable would be a good excuse for taking a lot of time here), our trusted professionals at our world-class service companies will solve this problem… whether DOS attack, or severed cable… we’ll be up and running fully functional and connected to the rest of the world before you can say “was dat smell? Huli chicken burning?”

    • Hawaii 24/7 says:

      I noticed the outage between 11:45 p.m. and midnight Monday (July 26). I know it wasn't isolated to my street even though a technician was working on the cable a couple blocks up (see photo above) I asked him what was up and he said he couldn't find the problem. Hele Wireless was down in Pahoa and when I say down I mean no signal. It probably shut down the transmitter because their backhaul is on OTW, and this was before 12:30 a.m.

      If anyone depends on connectivity for work or critical services you need to have more than one backup plan. Hele Wireless was working in Waiakea so maybe they must have been going through HawaiianTel or something other than OTW at that time as Hilo was still without service at that time.

  32. Mike says:

    i'm on oahu and my download speeds are so slow! 14-16 kbs… been like this all day. have they given any indication on when we can expect normal speeds again?

  33. juli says:

    Oceanic relied on Hawaiian Telcom to help them restore service. They are piggybacking off of their fiber. And to think that Oceanic brought in phone lines to be Hawaiian Telcoms rival. Hmmmmmm. Hawaiian telcom to the rescue.

  34. Cory says:

    The Black Hat 'Security' Conference began today in Las Vegas, and is an organization of hackers who (mostly) hack their way through corporate and government security weaknesses in order to bring attention to the issues (and to themselves).

    It is possible that there really is a fiber optic cable 3000 ft below Hawaiian waters (or somewhere) which has become 'severed' to some extent, and which is causing the current service problems–necessitating the scrambling and switching and rebooting that we see with Verizon Wireless, Time-Warner, HawaiianTel, and all the others affected.

    That said, it would be nice to be informed of the efforts to correct the problems by our service providers… I for one, have not heard a peep! All the information I have is gleened from other sources.

  35. Cory says:

    In this day-and-age, outages of multiple (if not all) service providers can effectively take out the communications network for a whole state! Hawaii is an easy state to compromise, and an easy target for hackers. I would think that our state government (since it too would be affected by such service interruptions) would be following this closely, and they may wish to assure the public that certain government services would be un-affected by this, or would be restored (services and security) in a timely manner….

  36. Cory says:

    Do we need to be especially careful about our online transactions at a time like this? You bet we do!! The only bit of advice I have heard that Time-Warner has given (the media), is for customers not to restart their cable boxes. OK….

    I would note that a lack of communication by any service company, or our governemnt, can only be explained in a few ways-: 1) they are 'oblivious' to the extent of the service problems; 2) they do not want to highlight their mistakes and liabilities; 3) they do not want to 'inadvertantly' supply critical security and infrastructure details to the very hackers who might be involved in causing the problems… or to those who may wish to exploiut a problem (such as a severed cable) in order to find out more about the infrastructure and security details.

    So, no matter how you slice it, some response by officials is warranted, but more details cannot be expected.

    Aloha

  37. Guest says:

    H.A.A.R.P. TESTING

  38. Guest says:

    All Blacks are going to beat Australia in Rugby and we are going to miss watching the game online. Do I have to get out the duck tape and snorkel and go fix that hose myself?

  39. tiff says:

    hacker attacks ? sure a fiber optic cable that no human can actually get to since it’s 3000 feet down – and humans can only safely dive to 300 feet gets severed and i come across posts of “oh it’s hackers” get a physics 101 book people. optic cables 3000 feet down + lots of pressure (we’re talking TONS)+ microcracks that developed over time in the cable = SNAP!!! sheesh .

  40. y8 says:

    Kauai isn’t working properly I only get download speeds of 30.0kb’s

Trackbacks/Pingbacks


Leave a Reply to leeCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

RSS Weather Alerts

  • An error has occurred, which probably means the feed is down. Try again later.

 

Quantcast