CocoTels rebuilding - a short progress(?) report

[Sinclair]

We've been so involved getting our service back up that we've neglected getting out information on what has been going on. Here's a short update. more detail will follow.

The Coconut Telegraphs Network was designed to take advantage of the the little appreciated fiber optic backbone running the length of Abaco that connects via undersea cable to Florida, as fine a communication facility as exists anywhere on this planet. We have three connections (Points Of Presence or 'POPs') into this network, New Plymouth on Green Turtle Cay, downtown in Treasure Cay, and at Port of Call in Marsh Harbour. From these POPs we feed a hub and spoke wireless network serving 39 wireless Access Points or Hot Spots for Abaco at the time Frances hit.

This network was crippled by Frances when a falling tree knocked out the tower serving as our hub in Mrash Harbour, the site that covered the Cays fron Guana thru Tilloo as well as the Marsh Harbour area. We were recovering from that when Jeanne took out our Green Turtle and Marsh Harbour POPs, a broken fiber cable at GT, flooding at MH. Today we're trying to link our Access Points from the single remaining POP at Treasure Cay and restore at least partial service until we can get MH and GTC back online.

This has unfortunately been a slow go. Of our three POPs, Treasure Cay is the least suitable to feed a distant network - low elevation plus large dense trees suround our site. But we've managed to establish links to backfeed Green Turtle and, yesterday, the settlemnent on Guana. Today we should get the Nippers site on-line, with that high tower we should be able to link to the Marsh Harbour primary wireless distribution hub. Then from there begin to serve the points that had depended on the Marsh Harbour POP.

I've quit trying to estimate what our schedule might be. But we'll keep this thread updated on our progress.

Thanks to all for their help and patience.

Abaco is not for sissies

[docb]

Hang in there Sinc. You are all doing an outstanding job! Did your new motor launch survive?

[coconutscottage]

Sinc,

I am down on the first of November. Let me know if you need any gear.

Scott Collinson
Coconuts Cottage

[MikeR]

Sinclair, we coming in about Oct 29th. Any needs?
Is the link on Royal Palm still there?

Mike

[Ralph]

Sinc,
Will the antenna at Nipper's replace the Ridgehouse? Can Leisure Lee get Nipper's signal?

[Sinclair]

Finally got the Nippers relay site up late Sunday afternoon. Moving to Marsh Harbour today. Finding sand and salt blown into and through the insulation on the coax cables on the towers, even where we lowered the antennas. Having to replace cables as well as broken antennas and flooded radios..

Nippers should serve Liesure Lee and the Abaco shore to Great Cistern.

Royal Palm condos and the Marina at Treasure Cay have been on-line for days.

Stay tuned.

[Abacoparrott]

Sinc, will the tower at Port of Call eventually be restored? Ken

[Sinclair]

It's taken three days but we finally have the Internet at Alta Vista, our primary tower site in Marsh Harbour. Just to make things a bit of a challenge, BEC had power off at Alta Vista to work on the Boat Harbour electrical system as well as off at our Treasure Cay site.

There is still a lot of testing and re-configuration work to be done and the tower repairs enabling us to reach over the hills into Hopetown itself are barely started. We do have a temporary tower and mast that should let us restore coverage everywhere else. Getting service restored depends now on replacing, relocating and/or reinstalling outlying access points. This is a big job in itself but different in that work can go on simultaneously at the access points where establishing the backfeed had to proceed step by step.

[Abacoparrott]

Is Alta Vista the same tower as Port of Call?

[webmaster]

Port of Call site is being razed, Mangoes site sunk. But we'll have replacements in that area fed off the AltaVista tower or from our replacement NOC in Marsh Harbour. Takes time.

[bjmarn]

Sinc,
Please ignore the complaints from SCay. I understand the problems and appreciate all of your efforts.
My airplane repairs from Frances were completed today, and I plan to fly to SC tomorrow or Sunday to help get things going. I'll try to get the SCAY network up and connected to MH, and then try the ScotlandCay. What can I do to help you??
Jerry

[Sinclair]

Sinc,
What can I do to help you??
Jerry

Jerry,

Am I glad to hear from you!!

The feed from Guana was going and tested Thurs afternoon at AltaVista. We reconfigured the Access Points for Boat Harbour, Green Parrot (Java), and Eastern Shore (Barometer Bob) Antenna work for those sites began yesterday.

We've got outgoing coverage for all our AltaVista sites except Hopetown and Parrot Cay. Today I'll be at Tilloo/Lubbers and the White Sound area (Sea Spray/Abaco Inn, et al) trying to get those Access Points operational. Plan to get Parrot Cay a temporary backfeed from Boat Harbour or White Sound.

To get Scotland Cay going you'll need to make some changes:

Channel : 1
Network ID: 1
access code: cocotels (was GuanaScotland)
IP Host: 10.33.17.30 (Gary) 10.33.17.31 (#2)
Private side : 10.33.21.0/24 (Gary) 10.33.22.0/24 (#2) you decide how to diviy up the fixed and DHCP address space ;-)
Set mode to Bridge. Outgoing address translation is off (no NAT anymore in the remotes)

We're taking this opportunity to re-number and smplify our network to better handle the flood of new internet services our subscribers are using, no more port forwarding headaches.

The fibre for Green Turtle was being repaired yesterday afternoon. That POP should be operational early in the week and take the Green Turtle load off the backfeed from Treasure Cay.

And BaTelCo is showing signs of installing our Dial-in and PBX lines temporarily at Abacom until we get permanent quarters in Marsh Harbour.

Bahama Palm Shores, Cherokee and points south are up with the feed from Casuarina Point

[Ms.Cellaneous]

Sinc, you're doing a fabulous job in a tremendously difficult situation. Thank you so much.

[HTVFR]

The south end of Elbow Cay is now reconnected on wireless.

[Sinclair]

Just when it seems we're making progress, our sole remaining fibre optic link to the Internet went out this afternoon. Replacement equipment and technician from Nassau flying down in the morning. Looks like the 'media converter' that converts the optical signal to electical and vice versa that we had rescued from our Marsh Harbour office after Jeanne has failed. It was in a cabinet high on the wall and didn't get flooded directly, but it seems the exposure to the high humidity and salty air in the storm has finally taken its toll.

Abaco is not for sissies.

[nancy mcdaniel]

It's about time you put in a full day's work! Hello from West Palm Beach and hoping that you are pacing yourself. Sounds like sooner rather than later, folks in the Abacos will be able to tune in to find out all about the madness leading up to Nov 2 over here! Oh for an ice cold Kalik and a barstool at Nippers right now! Keep up the great work - Bruce and Nancy

[fennders46]

Sinclair....we all appreciate your hard work in getting us back in touch. Looking forward to flying back to Marsh Harbour on Tuesday. Best of Luck, FENNDERS

[Sinclair]

Have the fibre backbone connection going in the New Plymouth settlement and a temporary broadband feed to the tower behind the Bluff House operational as of yesterday afternoon. That has allowed us to devote more of the TC fibre to Guana and points south. Nothing is yet functioning at 100% anywhere, but we're improving.

Heading to MH to work on dressing out the repaired tall tower with antennas and cables this afternoon. No promises but we're tryng to get it standing up and funtional this weekend to serve Hope Town and Elbow Cay, etc from White Sound northward. :)

[islandtata]

Whats the status on the wireless? Areas that are up and running etc...

[Sinclair]

(We call our Marsh Harbour network center and tower site near the Cottman, Out Island Doctor, castle "Alta Vista".)

We tested the high antenna on the Alta Vista tower that serves the area from the north end of Elbow Cay thru Hopetown south to White Sound by the Abaco Inn and Sea Spray yesterday with good results. The White Sound access point based at Sea Spray is now usable. The access points at Parrot Cay and Hopetown now just need antenna repairs to be operational. The filler access points over Dorros Cove and by Papa Nasty's will be getting our attention next week as well the ones on Man-O-War and the Guana site serving Guna Seaside and Bakers Bay. I hadn't mentioned it but the Manjack site serving that anchorage has been operational for several weeks and is our only access point fully solar powered, but it won't be the last.

Our next job at Alta Vista is re-install the dedicated antennas for Scotland Cay, Man-O-War, Marsh Harbour, Boat Harbour, Lubbers and Tilloo. These areas have been sharing a single omni-directional antenna since Frances, a good approach in an emergency but not in the long run.

We have no word on the schedule for getting our fibre back in MH to give us a dedicated feed to Alta Vista. We do have new quarters waiting. We've done some tweaking on the Treasure Cay-Guana-Alta Vista backfeed to try and improve throughput and relability, that link remains a temporary patch.

BaTelCo has installed a temporary circuit for our dial-in customers, we are testing but their main tech is off Abaco. No progress on our voice PBX lines (367 2729)

The saga continues. Thanks to all of you for your patience.

[Sinclair]

The tower and Access Point serving Hope Town came back on line today. Clay and his crew raised the antenna mast in all this wind! The White Sound area is back on-line with the Access Point relocated overlooking Sea Spray.

This leaves the Dorros Cove, Papa Nasty, and Parrot Cay sites on Elbow Cay still needing antenna work, we've checked and reprogrammed their units for the new network scheme. As soon as we can get the new antennas and cables installed these sites should be on-line.

BaTelCo tried restoring our dial-in cicuits on a temporary loop to Abacom's store in Marsh Harbour Friday. After a frustrating day, we had to conclude that the telco cables have been damaged to the point that they couldn't carry the high speed data for the 24 circuits required over the distance from the central office to Abacom. We are now looking for another site for the dial-in equipment. Our PBX lines are still out.

We'll be relocating the antennas at AltaVista from the temporary mast to our permanent tower this week and continue to tweak things to improve speed and reliability,

Man-O-War is our next target. Then we get to resume the overall upgrade projects that we had to put on hold in September. That's when the fun will start.

[islandtata]

great.