Comment by malbs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by malbs | Hacker News Reader

Here in Tasmania we're not at the shut down stage yet, but it's something no one wants to talk about. They're not asking residents to shutdown yet, but if things continue the way they are, who knows. The major companies/power users are currently being rationed (Aluminium smelters, paper mills etc)

The state relies on hydro-electric power, and last year sold off a lot of its "excess" power to Victoria via the Basslink cable at a huge profit.

However we're suffering a fairly bad drought, and the dams are at historically low levels. Worse still, the Basslink cable (which allows the state to both export and import electricity) failed on December 20th 2015, and the repair ship has been unable as yet to actually locate the fault in the cable (it's a 270km long under-sea cable)

Apparently the repair ship costs are running @ $100,000 per day, and it could take months.

On Friday they severed the cable in order to begin testing to locate the fault, and half of Tasmania's internet went down. I was unlucky enough to be with one of the ISPs who didn't provision enough backhaul connectivity on the other network cables, so my 100mbit fibre internet now looks something like a 1998 dialup connection

malby@peep:~$ wget ftp://ftp.iinet.net.au/test10MB.dat

--2016-03-14 16:07:41-- ftp://ftp.iinet.net.au/test10MB.dat => `test10MB.dat'

Resolving ftp.iinet.net.au (ftp.iinet.net.au)... 203.0.178.32

Connecting to ftp.iinet.net.au (ftp.iinet.net.au)|203.0.178.32|:21... connected. Logging in as anonymous ... Logged in!

==> SYST ... done. ==> PWD ... done.

==> TYPE I ... done. ==> CWD not needed.

==> SIZE test10MB.dat ... 10000000

==> PASV ... done. ==> RETR test10MB.dat ... done.

Length: 10000000 (9.5M) (unauthoritative)

100%[===============================================================================>] 10,000,000 6.82K/s in 43m 41s

2016-03-14 16:51:24 (3.73 KB/s) - `test10MB.dat' saved [10000000]

I mean, I feel bad complaining about my internet speeds, because in 6 months times if there hasn't been any rain.. well, it's going to get a lot more serious.

Thanks for sharing tue situation with us. I live just across the ditch in New Zealand and somehow managed to remain oblivious about it.

The developments makes me feel somewhat uneasy since NZ is highly reliant on hydroelectric power and we have been shutting down thermal plants because they are no longer required. Whilst there is excess capacity now we have had problems during the droughts in 2004 so the risk of another shortage is real.

Also, why is the internet affected? Is the communications cable laid next to the HVDC cable?

The power cable contains a fiber optic cable within itself. This fiber cable was a major fiber route for Tasmania.

http://isbasslinkfixed.com/

I feel very sorry for you people down there. There's really no other way to route traffic that has enough capacity for the whole state. It's a great/terrible example of the part of the National Broadband Network that no one talks about - Australia simply doesn't have enough backhaul because we're so far away from everywhere.

TASMANIA?! I originally read that as 'Tunisia'

WTF dude, if you need any large downloads let me know - I'm sure it'll arrive faster by mail boat :P

Does anybody live 'off the grid' where you live? What are your options for self-generating electricity, like solar or wind? Definitely a wake up call to me here in Canada. I'd be lost without electricity!

Best of luck, and I'm hoping the rain comes soon!

> I was unlucky enough to be with one of the ISPs who didn't provision enough backhaul connectivity on the other network cables, so my 100mbit fibre internet now looks something like a 1998 dialup connection

Shouldn't this be handled by the NBN? I thought fibre was supposed to be run by NBNco so we wouldn't have to deal with these issues ever again.

As far as I understand, their infrastructure is from the home/street to the exchanges. Major backhaul links are still done via individual ISPs, the net result of which is vastly differing NBN performance between providers.

This is correct. My NBN TPG connection is very fast for somethings, and very slow for others depending on where the servers are hosted, although it has improved dramatically in recent months.

I can't edit my original post now, but if anyone is interested in further reading on the power situation here:-

http://www.wattclarity.com.au/2016/03/some-thoughts-on-the-s...

Reminds me of a situation in Norway a few years back, where a dry autumn, a cold winter, and the power companies using a new cable to the continent to sell their "excess" capacity abroad resulted in skyrocketing prices.

Is anyone installing solar panels on a small or large scale?

The latitude means that Tasmania isn't great for solar, but jutting out into the Southern Ocean as it does means it has good wind resources.

> The latitude means that Tasmania isn't great for solar

Just for comparison:

Berlin is at lattitude 52°31′N.

Marseille is at lattitude 43°18′N.

Hobart is at lattitude 42°53′S.

So Tasmania is more similar to southern Europe in levels of insolation. Not as great as mainland Australia, which has some of the best insolation levels in the world, but still not too bad.

And yes, Tasmania also has great wind resources.

Solar isn't too bad. As soon as I can buy a couple of Tesla batteries (or equivalent) I'll probably look at getting solar... In the winter the days are short (but nothing like Scandinavian countries), and can go multiple days without seeing the sun, so definitely want a good set of batteries

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