Recently saw an aerial video where an entire neighborhood in Laihana had burned down except for the concrete block structure small ILEC CO.
Pictures I have seen of other ILEC sites in Hawaii closely resemble some GTE sites in the Pacific Northwest (now Ziply), which makes sense with the history of GTE in Hawaii.
Does anyone have some more detailed photos or examples of a telecom site that’s survived while everything else around it is burned up?
I’m looking to share this with some contacts in BC for rural telecom purposes and disaster preparedness discussions.
This email is delayed because we have all been busy not only with getting the network up, but also collecting tons of stuff to donate to the folks over there. Many lost everything except the clothes on their back and what little they could carry.
That's a Hawaiian Telcom CO in Lahaina. I work (again) for HT these days. We have special air filters and air handlers. The generators came on and kept everything going and air conditioned. Once the poles were put up and the fiber strung we found all the equipment running just fine.
In that CO is a lot of stuff, but the main thing for the router guys was a Nokia ESS-7 chassis that has been running since around 2007. (approx)
We got connectivity to it from the core yesterday and are getting connectivity to the edges as I type.
Here is a photo a tech took. They were the first allowed into the area after electric folks. Notice the smoke everywhere and all the debris on the road.
Yes, it definitely looks like that. We have connectivity to some of the edges and have put up hotspots, so folks can go to the hotspot areas and get internet access.
Scott: Just an FYI that anecdotal reports from social media coming in or stating that residents have been unable to connect to the Wi-Fi hotspots that the local government have been promoting in the Lahaina area.
I found it interesting that all? cellular service on west maui died? Does every carrier single-home via waves served out of the Lahaina CO? Or maybe they aren’t allowed to have generators in Maui? Seems like they would have diverse paths to major sites
It’s my understanding that the Hawaiian ILEC is now owned by Cincinnati Bell, which is also a unique historical artifact, as it was its own independent corporation/operating entity in the region of Cincinnati during the era of the pre-1984 Bell system.
Somewhat like how GTE was independent in other places in the country.
Some of the Hawaii ILEC structures I have seen photos of in other non-fire-affected places and other islands have a resemblance to designs that were built by BCTel, the ILEC in British Columbia, at the time when GTE was a shareholder in BCTel.
It's my understanding that the Hawaiian ILEC is now owned by Cincinnati
Bell, which is also a unique historical artifact, as it was its own
independent corporation/operating entity in the region of Cincinnati during
the era of the pre-1984 Bell system.
Not that unique, SNET was also a Bell affiliate in most of Connecticut.
Hawaiian Tel has a very painful history. It was independent until
1967, then bought by GTE, then merged into Verizon along with the rest
of GTE in 2000, then sold to a hedge fund in 2004 which knew nothing
about telephony and ran it into bankruptcy, then an independent public
company from 2010 to 2017, when it was bought by Cincinnati Bell,
which in turn was bought in 2021 by Australian conglomerate Macquarie.
Running phone systems on islands is very expensive. There's only
160,000 people on Maui, about the same as Salinas CA, but separated
from the rest of the world by a lot of water.
Yes, it definitely looks like that. We have connectivity to some of the
edges and have put up hotspots, so folks can go to the hotspot areas and
get internet access.
Well, it sounds like the historical Bell System attitude has transitioned
forwards to ... newer transport. Good.
Yeah, the mindset of keeping it all running whatever we need to do is still strong here. We have been having looong conf calls with many folks on it.
It's my understanding that the Hawaiian ILEC is now owned by Cincinnati Bell, which is also a unique historical artifact, as it was its own independent corporation/operating entity in the region of Cincinnati during the era of the pre-1984 Bell system.
Yes, HT was bought by Cin Bell. CB was then bought by an out of country company and are changing their name to altafiber.
It's my understanding that the Hawaiian ILEC is now owned by Cincinnati
Bell, which is also a unique historical artifact, as it was its own
independent corporation/operating entity in the region of Cincinnati during
the era of the pre-1984 Bell system.
Not that unique, SNET was also a Bell affiliate in most of Connecticut.
Hawaiian Tel has a very painful history. It was independent until
1967, then bought by GTE, then merged into Verizon along with the rest
of GTE in 2000, then sold to a hedge fund in 2004 which knew nothing
about telephony and ran it into bankruptcy, then an independent public
company from 2010 to 2017, when it was bought by Cincinnati Bell,
which in turn was bought in 2021 by Australian conglomerate Macquarie.
Yep, that's it. And the hedge fund (The Carlyle Group) thing was a complete disaster. I was here for all that. Fugly is all I can say.
Running phone systems on islands is very expensive. There's only
160,000 people on Maui, about the same as Salinas CA, but separated
from the rest of the world by a lot of water.
We have a lot of undersea fiber and it is all connected into one big MPLS network for the internet stuff. There is still SS7 stuff out there, too. I am unfamiliar with that part.
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?
I would be willing to travel down to help restore infra; I did this back around Sandy as well. Is there anyone we can contact?
I am not sure who to contact. I don't work with the fiber guys as I am a router guy. I could only tell you to call the main number and work yourself to the fiber guys or look online and see who you can find that way. But they have lot of fiber up at this time. They got guys from other islands over there last week and have been stringing fiber non-stop since then - over the weekend and nights. Lahaina is small square area wise. We already are getting Napili online today, which is north of the area affected.
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)
