So, we ran out of capacity in our datacentre today. It’s not that we don’t have enough power, or space – our growth over the past few months (both Chombo and SONET) has meant that we’ve actually run out of carriage to our datacentre!
Our DC is served by an Optus SDH feed, terminated on an Alcatel-Lucent STM-1 ethernet demarcation unit. We’re lucky – because the data is carried via an STM-16 and then demuxed into STM-1 for us, we get the protection of Optus’ optical ring and microwave transmission path between Rochedale and the city, without having to pay for additional fibre into the building.
Now, as good as our STM-1 is (we’ve never had an outage), we’re not satisfied by having “all our eggs in one basket”. Whilst SDH is venerable, a ring failure could prove catastrophic for us. Because of our location, the only other optical carrier in the area is Telstra – whilst we have no issues with Telstra Ethernet/IP services (we’ve found the quality and price of their products to be fantastic), the cable paths for their ethernet services are exactly the same as Optus – which subjects us to potential backhoe attenution (ie, idiots with shovels).
As most of you probably know, Chombo’s parent entity, SONET, owns substantial microwave infrastructure throughout Brisbane. We’ve been using this as a customer access network, to deliver advanced services such as IaaS, VoIP, WAN and Internet via our own microwave network – we call this wirelessIP. We’re currently putting infrastructure in place which will allow us to double our capacity to our datacentre and double our backhaul and resiliency for our wireless customers – as well as installing some long-haul radio routes to get to the Sunshine Coast and Lismore.
Our radio network is not as direct as fibre, but provides us with an independently controlled, resilient network whose infrastructure we own entirely – this allows us to continue to service our constantly growing client base and dramatically reduce our operational expenditure by making intelligent, informed decisions on strategic capital expenditure.
Sometimes it’s worthwhile to take your time and enjoy the scenic route 
Optus' Fibre Termination
There's an E1 in the building which provides clock for this archaic old thing.
Lots of fibre! We terminate managed WAN and an OC-48 ring generator in here too.
Our lowly server room/datacentre facility. It's nice and cool in summer.
The views from the top of the Cootha repeater site are amazing!
It's a long way down!
10KM away and 600m above the Brisbane CBD is the frenzel zone of the new backhaul link, providing hundreds of megabits of protected ethernet trunking.