Say what you want about
net neutrality, at least the Internet hasn't been taken out by a hobo. Unlike the regular Internet we all use everyday, which was originally designed to
distribute the AACS hex key withstand a nuclear attack, Internet2 is designed primarily for speed --
up to 9.08Gbps in most recent tests. All that juice comes at the price of redundant network links, though -- which means the whole thing got taken offline last night when a homeless man threw a cigarette onto a mattress under Boston's Longfellow Bridge, starting a blaze that eventually melted the fiber-optic link between Boston and New York. While initial estimates called for a service outage of 1-2 days, quick-thinking techs were able to get service going again in just 4 hours. Good thing, too -- if the panic that sets in around here when our DSL goes out is any indication, with the kind of bandwidth these guys were missing out on, there must've been wailing in the street.
Read - El Reg's coverage
Read - Internet2 Network Upgrade Team blog
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
so yeah @ May 4th 2007 1:29AM
haha the red sox said it was part of his "disguise" so he wouldnt get noticed
paul34 @ May 3rd 2007 10:47PM
*awaits paranoid cries of terrorism fears*
For real, let's ban all cigarettes!!!11oneoneeleven
/sarcasm
paul34 @ May 3rd 2007 10:52PM
BTW, I realize my comment may have sounded wrong... anyway, I meant that as a jibe against paranoia. I'm not saying that cigarettes are good for you. I don't smoke.
Steve Shickles @ May 3rd 2007 10:56PM
Let's ban all cigarettes
Chuckles McGee @ May 3rd 2007 11:11PM
We must protect the vulnerable series of tubes which comprise this great Internet!
steez @ May 3rd 2007 11:34PM
Engadget uses DSL? How fast can DSL run?
Josh McGrath @ May 4th 2007 12:19AM
verizon has business dsl up to 7 mbps
kadajawi @ May 4th 2007 3:27AM
In Germany 16 mbps is somewhat common, but in some areas we have up to 50 mbps.
paul34 @ May 3rd 2007 11:34PM
Well, I think that depends on whether the tubes are constructed of burnable plastic or good ol' lead!
ChrisAshtear @ May 3rd 2007 11:53PM
the internet was not designed to withstand a nuclear attack. thats been a huge ongoing myth.
read where wizards stay up late- great book on the origins of the internet
Vincent Do @ May 4th 2007 12:01AM
Watch out for the hobos! They're even worst than terrorists!
010111 @ May 4th 2007 12:31AM
"who uses hobo anymore?"
i can't think of anyone that *doesn't* use "hobo" these days. "homeless person" is what my mother or a press release would use.
Derek @ May 4th 2007 1:23AM
Oh no! Internet2 was down. That's going to affect all of about 6 people in the world - the ones that like to perform the speed tests to each other.
Tony Rayo @ May 4th 2007 1:30AM
A lot of colleges use Internet2, but have backups as well.
er @ May 4th 2007 2:05AM
It also closed the damn Red Line and stranded me in center city for 3 hours... nicely done bum
Josh @ May 4th 2007 5:17AM
My uni hall of residence (aka college dorm, I guess) has 20Mbps, but that's far higher than the average here in the UK - most domestic services offer 'up to 8Mbps'.
ascian @ May 4th 2007 4:59AM
"All that juice comes at the price of redundant network links"
but if it's redundant, isn't the whole idea if one link goes down, there are others to pick up the slack? unless networking has somehow changed the definition of the word...
kadajawi @ May 4th 2007 8:06AM
Hehe, yeah, dorms should have faster connections. The one of our uni has I think 100 mbps or so...
@ascian and Matt: Read again. The speed seems to be archieved by getting rid of any redundancy... I wonder where the use of this Internet2 is though... maybe to connect universities etc., but still, wouldn't at least a bit of redundancy make sense?
Matt Carrell @ May 4th 2007 5:26AM
FOUR HOURS? Bullocks! When three major servers on the regular internet go down, nobody hardly even notices.. How can just one link kill Internet 2? OOOOHhhhhhh.. Someone's getting fired!
Yaktastic @ May 4th 2007 9:21AM
Damn Mooninites!!!!!!
D W @ May 4th 2007 9:46AM
This happened to the internet in the late 90's when a homeless person did exactly the same thing under the Washington Ave Bridge in Minneapolis. Apparently much of outstate Minnesota and the Dakota's were offline for a while.
Chris Robb @ May 4th 2007 9:55AM
Trust me guys, this did NOT take the entire Internet2 down. It took our links between two cities down and the network healed between the two cities. We have all sorts of redundancy and this sort of thing is common. The only thing that was exciting about the story was the fashion in which the fiber cut happened.
jwardell @ May 4th 2007 11:30AM
Funny this is the first I've heard of network outages, given all the coverage of the bridge fire by the local big-name media. They did mention there was some damage to electrical wires, but they wrote it off to subway power which was quickly repaired.
If you are wondering what the heck a pipe this big is doing on an old subway bridge, it is steps from MIT, which I'm sure is one of the big players in i2.
The issue raised by many is how the heck all that abandoned trash could go unnoticed under this bridge, when they were making such a big deal about some harmless LED signs on neighboring bridges. You would have to undertand boston to even begine to fathom an explaination to that one.
And you can rest assued if some bum were to cut the 20meg glass coming into my house, he'd have a lot more than a burning matress to worry about. ;)
murray @ May 4th 2007 4:11PM
I never knew there was an internet 2... nobody tells me anything.
OddManOut @ May 4th 2007 7:22PM
"he internet was not designed to withstand a nuclear attack."
Yeah...that would be giving Al Gore WAY too much credit...
"In Germany 16 mbps is somewhat common, but in some areas we have up to 50 mbps."
Ah...you make me miss Japan. 20mbps was normal...50mbps common...100mbps an easily attainable luxury. In the bigger cities of course, out in the sticks where I was 50mbps was pretty well top notch.
All of which smokes the 5mbps I'm getting here in SILICON VALLEY...