Vandals break Basslink fibre cable

Vandals are being blamed for damaging a terrestrial fibre optic cable owned by Basslink Telecoms, resulting in almost 20 hours of internet connectivity problems for Tasmanian residents over the weekend.

The problems started at about 7pm AEDT (3.50pm WST) on Friday March 7th, according to issue advisories posted by iiNet and its subsidiary Internode.

By 2am AEDT the following morning, the root cause had been identified as a backhaul fibre breakage at Traralgon South in Victoria.

Basslink operates a terrestrial link that connects Traralgon with a converter station near the coast. The converter station is a landing point for Basslink's subsea cable, a prime backhaul link between Victoria and Tasmania.

An iiNet representative confirmed on the Whirlpool broadband forums that the affected cable belonged to Basslink.

Connectivity on the route was restored just before 4pm AEDT on Saturday. Both iiNet and Internode attributed the breakage to foul play.

"The cause of the fibre damage was identified to be vandalism," iiNet said.

iiNet's forum representatives indicated the ISPs would await the details of a full post incident report to see what, if any, measures Basslink could take to prevent a recurrence of fibre vandalism.