Satellite internet provider Starlink hit by network outage
Reuters has reported the the Elon Musk owned company was in a network outage and actively implementing a solution.
In a social media post, Musk noted there was an outage and said SpaceX would remedy the root cause of the problem to ensure it did not happen again.
The morning's headlines in 90 seconds, including Hulk Hogan dies, sentencing for a New Zealander who assaulted two airline stewards, and a big accolade for Te Papa. (Source: 1News)
RNZ listeners were reporting their connections were down.
ADVERTISEMENT
rnz.co.nz
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Otago Daily Times
13 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Gunman 'neutralized' after shooting in Manhattan
Police officers assemble at the scene of an active shooter situation in Manhattan. Photo: Reuters A person who opened fire inside a midtown Manhattan skyscraper housing the National Football League headquarters and offices of several major financial institutions, including hedge fund giant Blackstone, has been "neutralized," the New York city police commissioner said. Police did not immediately make details of the shooting public, but a law enforcement source told Reuters at least one New York Police Department officer and two civilians were struck by gunfire and that the suspect was believed to be dead. The source said the information was preliminary, and the condition or extent of injuries sustained by the police officer and two others was not immediately known. The New York Post newspaper, citing unnamed police sources, reported that a gunman wearing a bullet-resistant vest and carrying an AR-style rifle had opened fire inside the Park Avenue skyscraper, wounding a police officer and a bystander. The Post reported they were in critical condition. The gunman, The Post reported, had barricaded himself inside the office tower, possibly on the 32nd floor of the building. A short time later, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Disch said on X: "At this time, the scene has been contained and the lone shooter has been neutralized." The skyscraper at 345 Park Avenue houses a number of financial firms, including Blackstone, the world's largest hedge fund, as well as KPMG and Deutsche Bank, along with the NFL headquarters and the Consulate General of Ireland. News media footage showed a large police presence in the area around the office tower. "There is an active shooter investigation taking place in Midtown right now," New York Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement on social media platform X as news of the shooting first surfaced. The FBI said agents from its New York field office were also responding to provide support at the scene.
Scoop
21 hours ago
- Scoop
Download Weekly: Concern as 3G shutdown nears
Breaking news: Major Starlink outage A message on the Starlink website earlier this morning (Friday July 25, NZ time) told customers the SpaceX low Earth orbit satellite broadband network was "experiencing a service outage". By 8:00AM the Starlink site was also offline, possibly because of the high traffic from customers looking for answers. The problem appears to be worldwide with users from all over reporting problems on sites like Reddit. Down Detector shows the outage was first reported at around 7:00 NZ time. Mixed awareness, lots of worries as carriers prepare to pull 3G plug Research carried out for the Digital Equity Coalition Aotearoa (Deca) shows mixed awareness of the coming 3G mobile network shutdown and high levels of concern among those most likely to be affected. One New Zealand and 2degrees plan to switch off their 3G networks before the end of the year. Spark will keep its 3G service running until March 2026. That means most remaining 3G users have less than six months before their phones stop working. One in five unaware Presenting the results in a webinar, Deca co-chair Vic McLennan said only three percent of survey respondents were 'very aware' of the shutdown. Another 36 percent were 'somewhat aware'. One in five had no awareness at all. This suggests mobile companies have not done a good job informing their customers. 'Everyone seems to be concerned about the shutdown,' McLennan says. The survey found 53 percent of respondents are very concerned. A further 43 percent are somewhat concerned. Not ready A report published in June 2024 by OpenSignal also found few users were ready for the change. At that point, One NZ planned a March 2025 shutdown. Spark was aiming to close its 3G service by the end of this year. Deca says barriers to upgrading are a concern. For many, the issue is financial. While it's possible to buy a basic 4G phone for under $100, there were reports of vulnerable users being sold far more expensive models. In some cases, customers took on debt they could not afford. A lack of digital confidence There are other issues. Some users lack digital confidence and struggle to make the shift. Others worry about losing access to emergency calling. That's also a particular concern for users with older 4G handsets that rely on 3G for voice. Another worry is coverage. In some areas, 3G signals reach further than 4G. The change could leave people in those fringe locations without service On a more positive note, the number of 3G-only users continues to fall. Tuanz CEO Craig Young told the webinar that 3G now accounts for just two percent of Spark's mobile data traffic. Voice calls over 3G have dropped by 85 percent. That suggests a shrinking number of users could be left behind when the service is switched off. Who are most at risk to the 3G shutdown? Deca identifies: Older people with basic phones, less well off, rural communities, Whānau using refurbished or older devices, Medically dependent or vulnerable people. Number porting services to remain regulated In a draft decision published this week, the Commerce Commission says there are no reasonable grounds to investigate number portability services. Local and Mobile Number Portability (LMNP) is what lets you keep your phone number when switching providers. Although they are two different services, the rules are much the same for landline numbers, which are now on the way out, and for mobile numbers. While portability is convenient for phone customers, it is also important for competition as it lowers the barriers that might otherwise stop people switching service providers. Number portability services have been regulated services since 2001. Under the Telecommunications Act, the Commerce Commission has to consider whether to stop regulating these services every five years. The Commission says there is no practical alternative to LMNP. If the rules were removed there would be no mechanism to stop phone companies from either refusing to change numbers or from charging excessive fees to do so. Which means, for now, the Commerce Commission wants to keep the rules in place. Chorus CTO Ewen Powell to step down A Linkedin post from Chorus chief technology officer says he will step down from the role at the end of July. Powell has been in the role for more than 14 years. In his post he says his journey took him from the Post Office to Telecom to Chorus. For now he will be taking a break before looking for a new role. Collins grants Tāwhaki Joint Venture $5.85 million Space minister Judith Collins has granted the Tāwhaki Joint Venture $5.85 million for three years of operational funding. Collins says: 'This funding will help it scale up aerospace operations, attract new customers and strengthen New Zealand's position in the global advanced aviation sector.' In other news... Starlink could be facing a congestion problem — Interest. Why Sky TV bought Three — NZ Herald. How many landlines are in service worldwide in 2025? — Telegeography. The Department of Internal Affairs has new digital identity rules — Reseller News. NCSC and Cert NZ integration now complete The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) says it has now completed integrating CertNZ into its organisation. As part of the change, the Cert brand, the website and the hotline will disappear. In a statement on the now merged website the government agency says the integration 'improves the experience for all New Zealanders reporting cyber security incidents, making it easier for people to know where to go for help'. They are nice words. Yet while the new structure might make sense from a cost point of view, there is no visible evidence of improved experience or ease of use. Download Weekly five years ago Spark upgrades to self healing Optical Transport Network. The telco built a 800 Gbps link connecting Glenfield and Papakura. It was the first self-healing fibre connection of its kind in New Zealand with the ability to automatically restore services after an outage. Enjoy the Download Weekly? Feel free to pass this email on to your colleagues. Have your say subscribers are able to comment on any newsletter or story on the website. Just scroll to the bottom of the page. Reader emails are also welcome. The Download Weekly is supported by Chorus New Zealand. Concern as 3G shutdown nears was first posted at Bill Bennett Freelance journalist. Auckland-based Bill Bennett writes technology and business stories that are directly relevant to New Zealand readers. His emphasis is on telecommunications, but he also covers other aspects of technology and business. You can find his features in the New Zealand Herald and hear him regularly on RNZ Nine to Noon and the NZ Tech Podcast. Bennett's The Download Weekly here. If you want to support his work, you can make a donation to his PressPatron account.
RNZ News
4 days ago
- RNZ News
SpaceX seeks cause of Starlink's global satellite network outage
Starlink is a satellite internet provider. Photo: 123RF SpaceX's Starlink satellite network was back up and running on Friday (local time) as engineers hunted for the root cause of one of its biggest international outages the night before, a rare disruption for the powerful internet system set off by an internal software failure. Users in the US and Europe began experiencing the outage at around 3pm EDT Thursday (7am NZST Friday), according to Downdetector, a crowdsourced outage tracker that said as many as 61,000 user reports to the site were made. In Ukraine, where troops rely heavily on Starlink for battlefield communications, the outage affected combat operations as service was "down across the entire front", said Robert Brovdi, the commander of Ukraine's drone forces. Starlink, active in roughly 140 countries and territories and used by a growing number of militaries and government agencies, is a key source of revenue for Elon Musk's SpaceX. The network has grown rapidly since 2020 into a disruptive force in the satellite communications industry. Starlink acknowledged the outage on its X account on Thursday and said "we are actively implementing a solution." The service mostly resumed after two and a half hours, Michael Nicolls, SpaceX vice president of Starlink Engineering, wrote on X. By 8pm, the company wrote on X that the "network issue has been resolved, and Starlink service has been restored". "The outage was due to failure of key internal software services that operate the core network," Nicolls said, apologising for the disruption and vowing to find its cause. Musk also apologised: "Sorry for the outage. SpaceX will remedy root cause to ensure it doesn't happen again," the SpaceX chief executive wrote on X. The outage was a rare hiccup for SpaceX's most commercially sensitive business. Experts speculated whether the service, known for its resilience and speedy development, was beset by a glitch, a botched software update or perhaps a cyberattack. Doug Madory, an expert at the internet analysis firm Kentik, said such a sweeping global outage was unusual. "This is likely the longest outage ever for Starlink, at least while it became a major service provider," Madory said. As Starlink amasses more than 6 million users, SpaceX has focused in recent months on updating its network to accommodate demands for higher speed and bandwidth. The company, in a partnership with T-Mobile, is also expanding the constellation with larger, more powerful satellites to offer direct-to-cell text messaging services, a line of business in which mobile phone users can send emergency text messages through the network in rural areas. SpaceX has launched more than 8000 Starlink satellites since 2020, building a uniquely distributed network in low-Earth orbit that has attracted intense demand from militaries, transportation industries and consumers in rural areas with poor access to traditional, fiber-based internet. "I'd speculate this is a bad software update, not entirely dissimilar to the CrowdStrike mess with Windows last year, or a cyberattack," said Gregory Falco, director of a space and cybersecurity laboratory at Cornell University. An update to CrowdStrike's widely used cybersecurity software led to worldwide flight cancellations and impacted industries around the globe in July last year. The outage disrupted internet services, affecting 8.5 million Microsoft Windows devices. It was unclear whether Thursday's outage affected SpaceX's other satellite-based services that rely on the Starlink network. Starshield, the company's military satellite business unit, has billions of dollars' worth of contracts with the Pentagon and US intelligence agencies. Separately, Reuters reported on Friday that Musk ordered a partial shutdown of Starlink during a pivotal push by Ukraine to retake territory in its war with Russia in late September 2022. - Reuters
