Hawaiian ILEC infrastructure and fire

Thu Aug 17 18:20:02 UTC 2023

I missed some of the below yesterday.

"Though I am curious about the Paniolo cable landing in Lahaina. Did it 
survive"

I believe a land section of the Paniolo cable was not burned and I think 
that's what they used.  Perhaps it was actually the undersea part and I 
just don't have access to that data.  One thing I do know is the Paniolo 
cable is what allowed us to get the MPLS node back to the core so 
quickly.  I feel pretty confident the CLS survived, but I have no actual 
data on that.

"HICS and HIFN land in Kihei instead, right?"

Yes, but there was a second fire in the Kula area (a 1.5 hour drive from 
Lahaina with no traffic) that was headed towards Kihei.  I think they 
stopped it, but it was the same thing.  Homes burnt to the ground and a 
LOT of fiber was burned up in Kula (1500-3500 feet above sea level).

"you would think they had microwave backup at minimum."

There is not very much microwave here.  There're issues with land and 
microwave tower rights on an island that size in addition to the 
geography which makes that an expensive alternative.  HT has some m/w on 
the tops of the mountains, but no other companies that I am aware of can 
get that done.

"I'm sure a few cells burned but there are over ten on the west side so 
they didn't all burn."

I am not sure how that works, but many of the cell sites are/were on 
buildings and such; not on towers.

"Feet on the ground are reporting they brought in at least a few COWS 
(cellular on wheels/portable cell site trucks)"

Yes, they did that with satellite back to their core.

scott

On 8/17/23 5:55 PM, TJ Trout wrote:
> I'm familiar with the island, it's it's puzzling that the major 3 cell 
> carriers would accept a single point of failure like that, you would 
> think they had microwave backup at minimum. Maybe it was a generator issue.
> 
> I'm sure a few cells burned but there are over ten on the west side so 
> they didn't all burn.
> 
> Feet on the ground are reporting they brought in at least a few COWS 
> (cellular on wheels/portable cell site trucks)
> 
> On Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 12:53 AM William Herrin <bill at herrin.us 
> <mailto:bill at herrin.us>> wrote:
> 
>     On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 6:43 PM scott via NANOG <nanog at nanog.org
>     <mailto:nanog at nanog.org>> wrote:
>      > Last, it's an island and diverse paths are
>      > short in number.
> 
>     To put it into perspective: there are exactly TWO roads that can get
>     you from Lahaina back to Kahului and the airport. One of them is a
>     narrow, cliff-hugging single lane road that is more or less paved.
> 
>     Though I am curious about the Paniolo cable landing in Lahaina. Did it
>     survive? HICS and HIFN land in Kihei instead, right?
> 
>     Regards,
>     Bill Herrin
> 
> 
> 
>     -- 
>     William Herrin
>     bill at herrin.us <mailto:bill at herrin.us>
>     https://bill.herrin.us/ <https://bill.herrin.us/>
> 