New links to ease iiNet growing pains

iiNet has told ZDNet Australia that it is "weeks away" from bringing in two new 10Gbps links from Sydney to Melbourne and north to Brisbane to assist growth and prevent faults.

The news came after a fault on Sunday saw iiNet and subsidiary WestNet's customers with limited access to internet for at least three hours, with iiNet reporting that the fault lasted from midday until 6pm western standard time.

iiNet chief technology officer Greg Bader explained the fault as "related to a [hardware] failure in one of [the company's] core [gigabit switch] routers in Sydney, [which] impacted transmission between Sydney and Bris/Melb".

The 35 per cent loss in capacity lead to customers in Melbourne and Brisbane experiencing congestion, he said. Whirlpool forums seemed to indicate that the congestion had been more widespread, with customers from Perth also complaining that they couldn't access websites.

Michael Richardson, an internet service provider (ISP) representative from Westnet, posted on the Whirlpool forum at 3:05pm: "Unfortunately, fault is just with our network. Engineers are putting workarounds in place to try and reduce the impact of the fault while it is being resolved. This work may cause latency; however, it will enable our users to access various sites."

The new links would make the network "bulletproof again", according to Bader. "Simply put, we need it for growth," he said, adding that the decision had been made two months ago.

The ISP also planned to provide an extra 10Gbps between Sydney and Perth within the next six months, Bader said.