Friday, 19th December 2008 - 09:09CET

Submarine cable fault: Engineers transferring Internet links from GO to Vodafone

GO and Vodafone engineers have been working throughout the night to transfer broadband internet services to the Vodafone undersea cable after a fault developed in GO's international gateway yesterday evening.

"Over the past night engineers have been implementing contingency measures together with Vodafone with the aim of starting to restore broadband internet services," GO said in a statement.

It warned that the fault will continue to result in "limited or restricted internet access" which is expected to improve as the day goes by.

The fault in the GO submarine cable developed at 6.30 p.m. International voice services were restored soon after using a microwave link, but internet links to overseas sites were cut for thousands of internet users.

The fault was located in the sea some 120km of cable away from Catania.

The fault was the second in four months involving this cable, but the first fault had occurred on land in Sicily.

A GO spokesman said it was not known what had caused the latest problem. The company's priority was to restore services, he said. The company was, however looking at whether some sort of seismic activity or the activities of a ship were involved.

Malta's international gateway services currently rely on undersea cables operated by GO and Vodafone. GO is currently in the process of laying a second cable, which should be operational within a few weeks. Melita has also said it plans to lay a cable to Sicily.

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Article © Allied Newspapers Ltd., printed on Saturday, November 7, 2009. This article is for personal use only, and should not be distributed.

Comments

Stephan Galea (on 22/12/08)

Mr. Stephen Sultana :P you have any doubt about that ? How many of you had problems with internet being disconnected all the time. Surprisingly with this system we dont have a very good service but the connection holds :| I forgot when was the last time I reseted the modem (TA) since GO shifted to Vodafone. I guess its time to give other ISPs a “GO” :p.

Graham Crocker (on 21/12/08)

The Submarine cable fault probably occured due to seismic activity. Malta isn't the only country with this problem infact BBC highlighted the occurance and mentioned malta in an article.

Therefore it is not GO's fault, who were just 2 weeks away from having a Back up cable, but probably God's fault or what is called an Act of God such as seismic activity.

Don't ask Go for compensation, ask God.

BBC: The main damage is to the four submarine cables running across the Mediterranean and through the Suez Canal.

It is thought that 65% of traffic to India was down, while services to Singapore, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Taiwan and Pakistan have also been severely affected.

I agree with L Galea , we should have satellite ISP's

J. Camilleri (on 21/12/08)

@L. Attard
Although I agree that these things happen, as customers, nowadays one expects to have an uninterrupted Internet service, particularly, when this results in loss of business (money), when the service is not available.

On one hand the myriad of disclaimers and administrative charges is fairly understood as a way to ensure that the customer understands that he has to do his part (pay); on the other hand, it is up to the service provider to ensure that the advertised 99.9999% percent uptime is maintained.

In the lack of service being provided, and, once it is restored (hopefully), a refund to compensate for the lack of service is the bare minimum the service provider can do to keep their customers "happy".

S. Camilleri (on 21/12/08)

@Joseph Schembri
Seems you are the only complainant with basis of grey matter. Yes I would say that GO should give something at least as a measure of goodwill

francesca vincenti (on 21/12/08)

I expect a refund for my internet monthly subscription that was effected and compensation for the inconvenience of not being able to top up my phone remotely from overseas due to the inaccessibility of the site. No excuses. Consumers are getting irrate and have rights these days.

David Cefai (on 21/12/08)

To those demanding compensation: I suggest you read your agreement with your ISP and the Terms of Service you agreed to.

I am pleased that there IS a backup plan - which is being implemented. Pity that it took so long to implement. One trusts that next time ( and there will be a next time, as sure as the fact that we live in an earthquake-prone zone ) it will be easier and faster.

L.Attard (on 21/12/08)

I sympathize with most of these unhappy users, but asking for compensation will not improve the service. People like John.J.Mercieca are just critics without any appreciation to the hard work given by most employees when things are running smooth and even more when things fail.
I suggest that both GO and Vodafone should double their existing equipment, which requires twice the number of employees and double expenses. This would result in double the current rates for all their services to their customers. This will definitely give a more reliable service to users like J.J.Mercieca but still no full guarantees of a fail proof service. That simply does not exist in reality.

kurt crockford (on 20/12/08)

John J. Mercieca
"and i demand at least a free month of compensation, if necessary taken from the salaries of GO's employees. "

Mr Mercieca why take it out on employees?what did they do go and cut the cable themselves ?

i was browsing through the net (yes i am with Go and yes i can actually browse!!) and i came across this article regarding the cable problem..

http://www.labnol.org/internet/internet-disrupted-as-undersea-cables-cut-again/6146/

some of you should really read the comments and learn how to complain.. everyone has a right complain and 'demand' compensation if they think they should be awarded such but there is a way and a way.. we say we are a civilised country.. biggest joke of the year thanks to comments by Mr John J. Mercieca.. I would appreciate if you kept your comments in Maltese so that foreigners that read your comments don’t make a laughing stock of Malta.

Peter Korsten (on 20/12/08)

"For anybody who thinks "this only happens to Malta" and wish to blame GO to no end please read this:"

Cool, but I don't live in Egypt and quite frankly, I couldn't care less what they do with their internet.

I do live in Malta and whilst I've got connectivity back now (I'm with NextWeb, who are probably using the Vodafone link), it was gone for quite a while and whether it was a tremor, a ship's anchor, the phase of the moon or a very big fish, I don't care either.

Go should have had backup capacity, and they didn't, and had to run head over heels to Vodafone to use their line. Had they done this before, like when the link broke a couple of months ago, the impact wouldn't have been so great as it was now.

Joseph Schembri (on 19/12/08)

The VERY LEAST that GO can do is give 'extra' credit (internet, mobile, TV, fixed line) to their subscribers once the problem is resolved. It will cost GO nothing. I am told that subscribers cannot even access their internet banking, thus accruing charges from their banks!

John J. Mercieca (on 19/12/08)

For anyone thinking that GO have already begun using the Vodafone cable, think again. I have just contacted GO customer care and I was told that they are still working on it and have no time frame when they will start using it.

a mifsud (on 19/12/08)

For anybody who thinks "this only happens to Malta" and wish to blame GO to no end please read this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7792688.stm

Mario Gauci (on 19/12/08)

No matter what the cause of the latest breakdown in service, GO are duty bound to compensate their subscribers for the inadequate service being given. Normal service is far from being returned. ~Just try browsing any international site and it is reminiscent of a dial up service. You will be lucky if the page loads in 5 minutes!

David Schiavone (on 19/12/08)

@P Debono

Please don't assume or try to comment if you don't have an idea. I can assure you that yes VF-MT engineers worked round the clock with GO's engineers to restore the service. Please be careful how you roll out your comments.

Christian Vella (on 19/12/08)

To: lgalea

Satelite internet won't solve a thing apart it's not that fast it has rather short life span compared to a fiber optic cable. Having smaller bandwidth capacities, its not at all worth it. The new fibre optic cable by GO and Melita is enough!

lgalea (on 19/12/08)

Ladies and gentlemen, this shows how we are so much dependent on modern technology but are not smart enough to have direct satellite links instead of going through all sorts of cables through other countries.

If Smartcity and Malta are to be smart we should have direct satellite links.

p.s.
ever notice how much silence you can "hear" or rather feel whenever the electricity is cut off?

Mario Nicchia (on 19/12/08)

This is what happens when you depend on other countries. Restoration of service will take forever!

I am sorry for you maltese to understand that you are planning to import electricity too via a cable.... Good plan! Complimenti!

Maria Agius (on 19/12/08)

I was just wondering how come Malta, in its Energy plan is boasting that it will connect electrically to Italy via a submarine cable. We are doing all this fuss for half a day without internet, what will Malta's popluation reaction be when electricity will be affected?

Can the goverment please take note of this, and leave the generation of an essential service in the hands of the Maltese.

G. Aquilina (on 19/12/08)

Hey!
Did anyone link this with the rising sea level on Wednesday? The waters went back and came forward just like a mini tsunami. True they did not record seismic activity, but what if they missed it? Or there was a shift in earth plates so that the cable broke? They said it was because of the moon... Maybe there were extremely strong deep currents and it was the reason the cable broke...

Mark Anthony Sammut (on 19/12/08)

@P Debono
And you expect us to believe that GO and Vodafone engineers have been working throughout the night to remedy the problem!!!! Not if they were Maltese!

I assure you that Maltese engineers are as competent as any other engineer in the world, and yes, they have been working night and day to remedy the problem. And for those of you who think that the rest of the world is immune from such faults and that these only happen locally:

http://www.gulfbase.com/site/interface/NewsArchiveDetails.aspx?n=52500
Cuts in two international submarine cable systems in the Mediterranean Sea this morning is affecting a number of regional and global telecom operators. UAE’s Etisalat announced that internet traffic in the UAE and International calls have been affected due to the cable breakdown.

John J. Mercieca (on 19/12/08)

After they have transferred their system to the Vodafone cable i'm wondering what the bandwidth and internet speed will be like. I already have way too much lag and slow speeds at peak hours, now imagine with all Maltese internet users on 1 cable. When they do get their own cable back to working will we have another 24 hrs outage while they transfer users back to it?

When my next bill from GO arrives i will not be paying the full amount they ask for and i urge everyone to do the same.

Paul Berman (on 19/12/08)

Some users may have internet back, I dont. I have local sites only BUT on waldonets site there is a statement saying "GO's undersea fibre-optic cable to Sicily developed a fault, which engineers located underwater. This will take some days to repair."

GO did not say this! but they dont say much anyway

David Schiavone (on 19/12/08)

Guys, i think here is a bit of mis-conception, not all ISPs are down, Melita are using Vodafone as their backup Service Provider. I sincerely Sympathise with all GO Users and personally I agree with what the people are saying. I agree and recommend to all GO Users to press GO to be given some sort of refund - either Extra Hours / Extra Credit to be consumed etc... This is not fair on all users and i ought they would be given a refund.

P Debono (on 19/12/08)

And you expect us to believe that GO and Vodafone engineers have been working throughout the night to remedy the problem!!!! Not if they were Maltese!

I demand a refund plus compensation, otherwise I will look for pastures new because I'm fed up of all these inconveniences.

wally vella-zarb (on 19/12/08)

OK, it is frustrating. But why change to another ISP? If I am not mistaken, there was a letter in The Times some days ago complaining that the service of another LARGE ISP had already been down for more than five days.
I have, last year, changed from this ISP to GO because of their charges and abysmal - for which read 'non-existent' - customer care. Not even the present glitch would induce me to regret that decision.

Owen Sant Angelo (on 19/12/08)

@ Jean Gatt
Your point is valid but consider that the issue here about is about business being affected and the customer not getting what he is paying (in advance) for.

@ all
Internet 'seems' to have been fully restored as of now. When the submarine cable is fixed, are we to expect X number of hours with partial/ no internet again as internet links are transferred back to GO? I hope not.

Vincent Bezzina (on 19/12/08)

'Smart City Dumb Island' does it again.
It's what you get after 20 years of incompetent administration.
I guess this little incident puts us at number 11 of the world ICT hubs.

C. Reiff (on 19/12/08)

Welcome to Smart Malta *cough*

Apart from the fact that this thing happened twice in 4 months, in Xemxija the internet has been cut off basically once every week due to a maintenance problem.
Besides, whenever our 8mbps connection is shared by 2 people, one might expect internet to go down to 4mbps speed, but NO, it goes down to disgraceful 300kps!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This has been happening since the Sicilian Road Works Incident, and GO have been reassuring me the problem isn't coming from their side *COUGH*
Terrible service, GO. TERRIBLE.

Philip Sultana (on 19/12/08)

Shambolic situation! And Malta expects to compete with the developed countries in the EU when countries like Turkey and Tunisia have overtaken us in the efficiency stakes and countries like Libya are fast gaining ground on us. Smart City indeed: with this lack of investment in basic infrastruture we are destined to become the ghetto of Europe.

Patrick Grixti (on 19/12/08)

Utterly disgraceful. Yes we were kept in the dark. I had to phone customer care who simply told me that there is a problem. no more no less. This instead of posting a message advising customers of the problem. As yet we do not know WHEN the service will be resumed. Some VALUE to the customers go claim to cherish.

We pay in advance for a service that simply fails to deliver. the fluctuation even in the bandwidth are unacceptable. And of course we are using the internet, from other ISPs that are so far unaffected.

The frustration is that we cannot use our own to full use, despite paying upfront. But WAIT. there could have been a seismic activity or a ship that ploughed through the cable!

Julian Borg Barthet (on 19/12/08)

To put things in perspective, GO operate an undersea cable that had cost Telecom Italia and 'Maltacom' millions to implement when they first installed it. laying a second cable is costing them even more due to the funding being primarily done by GO themselves. The Vodafone link is our failover for the ISPs that offer such a service. Waldonet and Melita have been offering a redundant service for years for such situations.

As for our 'expensive' bandwidth costs, local ISPs are not directly on the backbone of the internet, having to rely on links all the way up to Milan and other major Teir 1 providers. This is why we pay so much and don't get the same cost and capacity of bandwidth that you get in the UK and other countries that are geographically placed on this international pipe.

My business is 99.9999% internet based, so I suffered just as much as you all did. But please don't start pointing fingers. GO and all other ISPs are trying their best to keep everything running and the costs down for all of us.

Dylan Grech (on 19/12/08)

Late in the evening this problem showed up. Surely it wasn't meant by GO to stop the service but as other are complaining this thing is completely insane. I was with another internet provider which had it's problems too but never took more then 6hrs repairs. The most thing that i really can't accept about this thing is you call them and after waiting at least 20 minutes before someone answers, a sweet voiced girl tells you we are working on the problem... Are they sure they know how to repair it cause the customer care don't look as even they know what happened.

It's now 11:30am and I'm still having problems some programs and websites working others not.

Jean Gatt (on 19/12/08)

@Mario Gauci

Come on!!!! Ok, so you're a bit angry because you don't have Internet access, but please calm down. It isn't the end of the world!!!!! Why don't you do like Mr.David Bugeja did.

Mr.Gauci you are, in my opinion, the perfect example of how dependent people are becoming on technology.

Adrian Vassallo (on 19/12/08)

I do not find it a surprise that in four months GO did not complete their second cable to Sicily.

During the trade fair (6 months ago) they upgraded all their 4Mbps subscribers to 8Mbps. I am still connecting at 4Mbps and their excuse for 6 months is that upgrade works are in progress and THEY DO NOT KNOW WHEN THEY WILL BE COMPLETED.

So how can one expect that in 4 months they complete a cable from Malta to SIcily when in 6 months they did not finish upgrade works in tiny Malta.

Mario Gauci (on 19/12/08)

@bryan sullivan

Yes you are 'missing something here'. Do you call this full service. 2 out of 3 international web sites that one browses results in them not working. Do you call this a good contingency plan?

Peter Roberts (on 19/12/08)

Internet connection is still not running at its full capacity. When are they going to fix the problem? I wish they would inform customers instead of keeping us all in the dark.

At the ridiculous high prices we pay for the service I hope everyone gets together and demands a refund. In the UK you can get unlimited broadband for £10 per month. GO charges €70 for 20Mbps. What a rip off.

If no refund is given i strongly recommend you all to change your ISP to show these companies they can't keep pushing us around.

David Bugeja (on 19/12/08)

All this shows how much dependant we are on the Internet. At least yesterday I picked up a book and started reading again and also went to bed early :)

A Cassar (on 19/12/08)

A couple of months back, we failed to pay our business telephone and internet bill by a couple of days, since the bils and paperwork got stuck with the accountant who happened to be on sickleave. GO immediately without warning cut our internet and telephone lines... We depend 100% on internet and telephone for our business.

I am asking that Go pays compensation not because they have a fault, since faults and accidents happen, but because after what happened 4 months ago, I expected a contingency plan to be in place by now. GO's lack of action in implementing a proper contingency plan is resulting in loss of business to us at a time when business is so much under stress, and damaging Malta's image as an IT hub!.

bryan sullivan (on 19/12/08)

am i missing something here? obviously some people are prepared to grumble about anything. how can people be blogging on this article without internet? internet is active this morning albeit with some problems. it was down during the night before contingency plans(ie. plans in place for an event which might not have happened)came into effect. hopefully the second undersea cable will come online as soon as possible.

Mario Gauci (on 19/12/08)

Below is an email I have just sent to GO's customer care. I will post here their reply. But as usual I do not expect a response from this company which seems to be getting worse than when it used to be called Maltacom!!!!
...........................................................................
I like other subscribers to your internet service rightfully request a refund from the day the internet service went down to the day FULL service is restored.

this is a shambles. Second time in only a couple of months.

I for one am not satisfied with your level of service and competency. Your contingency planning so far has resulted in not being able to communicate to many international web sites.

No more excuses please.

Mario Gauci

Nicholas Bianco (on 19/12/08)

It is botherome to be without internet these things do happen although this is the second time. alas the contingeny plan should have been already in place.

Mr.Darmanin
In regards to low connection speeds well thats according to your subscription and how much you pay.

Owen Sant Angelo (on 19/12/08)

When the first fault happened, I had commented on this website that GO should have the decency to give subscribers at least the number of hours lost - restricted internet does NOT qualify as 'having restored service'. Predictably, not even one extra day was added to my internet account. I suppose GO relies on momentum to retain customers i.e. it's easier to accept a day/two without internet than to change ISP. This may be for home users but I'm quite sure businesses are starting to think twice if they haven't yet. I suggest that GO draws a proper backup plan that does not take DAYS to implement and of course that all GO subscribers get at least double the number of hours lost to full use of internet they paid for in good faith with good money.

brian montebello (on 19/12/08)

were is the contingency plan???how come such work was carried out during and not before the emergency??

dgrech (on 19/12/08)

I miss my internet too..but people come on chill and put things in perspective!

Jesmond Darmanin (on 19/12/08)

this is an extremely ridiculous situation. a backup undersea cable should have been implimented AGES AGO!! as a previous comment said... we pay for our internet connection in advance... and when an issue like this occurs, we do NOT get refunded for the days we get without service. its unfair!

The ironic part of the story is that we are now advertising ourselves to be a smart city... what sort of smart city would it be without a reliable internet connection! oh, and lets not forget the abysmally terrible connection speeds!

James Bowrie (on 19/12/08)

I am appalled at the reliability of GO's Internet service. I was personally affected a few weeks ago by a wet cable on our roof that was failing due to the poor job the last engineer did. How does Malta expect to become a center of excellence for IT and attract foreign businesses when they cant even provide a reliable International link? There is no reason to believe its going to get better since they promised us last time it happened that they would have some redundancy.

Stephen Sultana (on 19/12/08)

No matter what, we expect that GO compensates its customers since the same customers are paying for the service upfront.

No more excuses!!! Contigency plans should have been planned beforehand! I think that it is time to switch the service to the other Internet providers.

Michael Attard (on 19/12/08)

:-0 !!! You tube is not working ...

How will the work day ever pass!! :)

J Camileri Baron (on 19/12/08)

there we GO again.... another wasted day without internet.....

Ironically, in today's back page of The Times, GO advertised a free wi-fi modem with every new internet connection.....pity they can only guarantee a Made in China plastic box...but not a reliable internet service....

pull the other one please....

Submarine cable fault: Engineers transferring Internet links from GO to Vodafone

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