[Starlink] An update on Tonga

[Starlink] An update on Tonga

[Ulrich Speidel]

Howdy all,

There were quite a few folk on this list a couple of years back who were 
interested in what was happening to Internet in Tonga after the big 
volcanic eruption there. I'm not sure where I left off.

To re-cap, Tonga lost about 90 km of its international connection to 
Fiji at the time (a few dozen km of that could be recovered), and an 
amount of cable of similar magnitude on the Tonga Domestic Cable 
Extension (TDCE) that ran a fibre pair each to both Vava'u and Ha'apai 
from the main island Tongatapu. The TDCE is one of the longer 
unrepeatered stretches of submarine cable in the world and runs in a 
submarine trench just downhill from the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai 
volcano and its siblings in the chain. Simulations at the timed showed 
that this trench likely received a large amount of the material that was 
ejected from the volcano, likely several cubic kilometres, and acted as 
a kind of gutter that guided the material away from the volcano in 
turbidity flows stretching over hundreds of km. At the time, the cable 
ship sent to repair was unable to repair the TDCE for lack of spare 
cable - nothing was recoverable from the seafloor, and there was not 
enough spare cable in the South Pacific to bridge the gap.

Spare cable was ordered from France and was installed middle of 2023, 
restoring the TDCE to service.

Then, on 29 June 2024, an earthquake near the volcanoes caused yet more 
debris to descend on the cable, obliterating 13.7 km of it and cutting 
service to both Vava'u and Ha'apai again. Cable ship MV Lodbrog was 
brought in from Singapore with 60 km of spares but got delayed in Fiji 
due to mechanical issues. The cable was repaired on 16 August 2024, in 
the same location. The operators were well aware of the risk, however 
re-routing the cable would have required it to be lengthened, with the 
need to insert repeaters, upgrade terminal equipment, and conduct a new 
marine survey, which would have meant further delays.

On 26 August 2024, 11:29 am, a M6.9 quake struck in the area at a depth 
of about 106 km. Our Science building in Auckland has a "citizen 
science" seismograph with a big display in its foyer, and my student and 
I noticed the very prominent event as we returned from lunch. Little did 
we know that this wasn't as close to home as we'd thought, but would 
touch us in other ways that week. You've guessed it: The cable has been 
cut again, the cable ship's been recalled, and nobody quite knows what 
they'll find this time.

https://matangitonga.to/2024/08/27/domestic-submarine-cable-out-again-after-haapai-earthquake-yesterday

The latest plan I know of was to repair in the same location again, 
using armored spares - but they know that this may not prevent further 
damage. Geological advice is that any decent quake in the area will 
cause further submarine landslides in the coming years until the area 
has settled.

Meanwhile, Starlink has been licensed to operate commercially in Tonga. 
For many Pacific Island countries, this is a double-edged sword: On the 
one hand, this provides short-term relief, on the other hand, it 
deprives local ISPs of customers and therefore impacts on aspirations to 
achieve cable connectivity which could provide more bandwidth in the 
medium term.

Some island nations have not yet licensed Starlink, but allow Starlink 
units on regional roaming plans to operate there. In some cases, there 
are now hundreds of such units operating in individual cells. This 
appears to be causing Starlink some headaches in terms of capacity - 
we've seen them being creative when it comes to user density management 
before. What happens if Starlink are going to be licensed there but 
can't offer fixed service on the ground because of the large number of 
roaming subscribers already there? I understand that some of these 
"roaming" users have been contacted by Starlink with a request to either 
take these units back to their home location country where they are 
registered (which isn't likely to happen given the cost involved) or 
register them in the country they're currently in (not possible in some 
cases for lack of local fixed service offered).

Ulrich


-- 
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)

The University of Auckland
u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
****************************************************************

Re: [Starlink] An update on Tonga

[Dave Taht]

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Thank you for the update!

It sounds like the rightest option is to deploy more than one cable on more
than one path, and my question is
who pays for that? Starlink cannot possibly provide enough bandwidth long
term.

Also have you been measuring the bloat and the ISLs any in tonga?


On Sat, Aug 31, 2024 at 12:35 AM Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <
starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

> Howdy all,
>
> There were quite a few folk on this list a couple of years back who were
> interested in what was happening to Internet in Tonga after the big
> volcanic eruption there. I'm not sure where I left off.
>
> To re-cap, Tonga lost about 90 km of its international connection to
> Fiji at the time (a few dozen km of that could be recovered), and an
> amount of cable of similar magnitude on the Tonga Domestic Cable
> Extension (TDCE) that ran a fibre pair each to both Vava'u and Ha'apai
> from the main island Tongatapu. The TDCE is one of the longer
> unrepeatered stretches of submarine cable in the world and runs in a
> submarine trench just downhill from the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai
> volcano and its siblings in the chain. Simulations at the timed showed
> that this trench likely received a large amount of the material that was
> ejected from the volcano, likely several cubic kilometres, and acted as
> a kind of gutter that guided the material away from the volcano in
> turbidity flows stretching over hundreds of km. At the time, the cable
> ship sent to repair was unable to repair the TDCE for lack of spare
> cable - nothing was recoverable from the seafloor, and there was not
> enough spare cable in the South Pacific to bridge the gap.
>
> Spare cable was ordered from France and was installed middle of 2023,
> restoring the TDCE to service.
>
> Then, on 29 June 2024, an earthquake near the volcanoes caused yet more
> debris to descend on the cable, obliterating 13.7 km of it and cutting
> service to both Vava'u and Ha'apai again. Cable ship MV Lodbrog was
> brought in from Singapore with 60 km of spares but got delayed in Fiji
> due to mechanical issues. The cable was repaired on 16 August 2024, in
> the same location. The operators were well aware of the risk, however
> re-routing the cable would have required it to be lengthened, with the
> need to insert repeaters, upgrade terminal equipment, and conduct a new
> marine survey, which would have meant further delays.
>
> On 26 August 2024, 11:29 am, a M6.9 quake struck in the area at a depth
> of about 106 km. Our Science building in Auckland has a "citizen
> science" seismograph with a big display in its foyer, and my student and
> I noticed the very prominent event as we returned from lunch. Little did
> we know that this wasn't as close to home as we'd thought, but would
> touch us in other ways that week. You've guessed it: The cable has been
> cut again, the cable ship's been recalled, and nobody quite knows what
> they'll find this time.
>
>
> https://matangitonga.to/2024/08/27/domestic-submarine-cable-out-again-after-haapai-earthquake-yesterday
>
> The latest plan I know of was to repair in the same location again,
> using armored spares - but they know that this may not prevent further
> damage. Geological advice is that any decent quake in the area will
> cause further submarine landslides in the coming years until the area
> has settled.
>
> Meanwhile, Starlink has been licensed to operate commercially in Tonga.
> For many Pacific Island countries, this is a double-edged sword: On the
> one hand, this provides short-term relief, on the other hand, it
> deprives local ISPs of customers and therefore impacts on aspirations to
> achieve cable connectivity which could provide more bandwidth in the
> medium term.
>
> Some island nations have not yet licensed Starlink, but allow Starlink
> units on regional roaming plans to operate there. In some cases, there
> are now hundreds of such units operating in individual cells. This
> appears to be causing Starlink some headaches in terms of capacity -
> we've seen them being creative when it comes to user density management
> before. What happens if Starlink are going to be licensed there but
> can't offer fixed service on the ground because of the large number of
> roaming subscribers already there? I understand that some of these
> "roaming" users have been contacted by Starlink with a request to either
> take these units back to their home location country where they are
> registered (which isn't likely to happen given the cost involved) or
> register them in the country they're currently in (not possible in some
> cases for lack of local fixed service offered).
>
> Ulrich
>
>
> --
> ****************************************************************
> Dr. Ulrich Speidel
>
> School of Computer Science
>
> Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
>
> The University of Auckland
> u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz
> http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
> ****************************************************************
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Starlink mailing list
> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>


-- 
Artists/Musician Campout Aug 9-11
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/healing-arts-event-tickets-928910826287
Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos

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Re: [Starlink] An update on Tonga

[Michael Richardson]

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Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
    > There were quite a few folk on this list a couple of years back who were
    > interested in what was happening to Internet in Tonga after the big volcanic
    > eruption there. I'm not sure where I left off.

Thank you for the update.

    > Spare cable was ordered from France and was installed middle of 2023,
    > restoring the TDCE to service.

How long was the outage caused by lack of spare cable?
Is there an effort to keep more spare cable closer?

    > location. The operators were well aware of the risk, however re-routing the
    > cable would have required it to be lengthened, with the need to insert
    > repeaters, upgrade terminal equipment, and conduct a new marine survey, which
    > would have meant further delays.

Is this on the long-term plan?

    > On 26 August 2024, 11:29 am, a M6.9 quake struck in the area at a depth of
    > about 106 km. Our Science building in Auckland has a "citizen science"
    > seismograph with a big display in its foyer, and my student and I noticed the

That's pretty neat.

    > Meanwhile, Starlink has been licensed to operate commercially in Tonga. For
    > many Pacific Island countries, this is a double-edged sword: On the one hand,
    > this provides short-term relief, on the other hand, it deprives local ISPs of
    > customers and therefore impacts on aspirations to achieve cable connectivity
    > which could provide more bandwidth in the medium term.

Yeah.  I see those edges.


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Re: [Starlink] An update on Tonga

[Ulrich Speidel]

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On 2/09/2024 10:17 am, Dave Taht wrote:
> Thank you for the update!
>
> It sounds like the rightest option is to deploy more than one cable on 
> more than one path, and my question is
> who pays for that?

Indeed, good question. That came up at the Pacific Internet Governance 
Forum today, too.

Basically, Tonga has been planning for some time for a spur off the 
Hawaiki cable to land in Vava'u (the northern population centre island), 
but that's still some time off.

The problem around Tonga is really unfriendly seafloor whichever way you 
look. Approaches from the West need to come through the chain of 
volcanoes, one of which is Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai, the volcano that 
exploded the other year. It has a few siblings further north that are of 
similar calibre. To the East and North to Samoa you have the Tonga 
trench, meaning you'd need to lay down a steep slope - landslide 
territory known for semi-regular M8 quakes. Approaching from the South 
from NZ means going along the Kermadec ridge, where there are multiple 
active volcanoes above and below water.

My current hope is that they'll find a way of getting the cable up from 
that trench onto the Ha'apai plateau. It mightn't be that safe from 
anchors there, but that might be a matter of policing and having 
mandatory AIS in the area.

> Starlink cannot possibly provide enough bandwidth long term.

Indeed. But their Ka-band community gateways are a feasible gap-filler 
until a proper cable can be laid. I gather that this is what's been 
offered to the cable company in Kiribati that's waiting for its cable.

>
> Also have you been measuring the bloat and the ISLs any in tonga?
Starlink's only just been licensed in Tonga (to protect the local ISPs 
that co-fund the cable projects) so we haven't looked at ISLs or bloat 
there yet. Bloat via cable connections - not something we've looked into 
from our end but probably worth doing. I might chew Terry Sweetser's ear 
about having you give a talk on this before soon at a Pacific IGF or 
appropriate APNIC meeting session, and hook you up with a few of the 
folk out there. Definitely something to build into the community 
training here. I've been able to connect with a lot of old chums and new 
acquaintances here, from Tonga and Samoa to Vanuatu to Tuvalu to Cook 
Islands. There's even a few Tokelauans and Marshall Islanders here, not 
to forget the i-Kiribati having turned up in force.
>
>
> On Sat, Aug 31, 2024 at 12:35 AM Ulrich Speidel via Starlink 
> <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
>     Howdy all,
>
>     There were quite a few folk on this list a couple of years back
>     who were
>     interested in what was happening to Internet in Tonga after the big
>     volcanic eruption there. I'm not sure where I left off.
>
>     To re-cap, Tonga lost about 90 km of its international connection to
>     Fiji at the time (a few dozen km of that could be recovered), and an
>     amount of cable of similar magnitude on the Tonga Domestic Cable
>     Extension (TDCE) that ran a fibre pair each to both Vava'u and
>     Ha'apai
>     from the main island Tongatapu. The TDCE is one of the longer
>     unrepeatered stretches of submarine cable in the world and runs in a
>     submarine trench just downhill from the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai
>     volcano and its siblings in the chain. Simulations at the timed
>     showed
>     that this trench likely received a large amount of the material
>     that was
>     ejected from the volcano, likely several cubic kilometres, and
>     acted as
>     a kind of gutter that guided the material away from the volcano in
>     turbidity flows stretching over hundreds of km. At the time, the
>     cable
>     ship sent to repair was unable to repair the TDCE for lack of spare
>     cable - nothing was recoverable from the seafloor, and there was not
>     enough spare cable in the South Pacific to bridge the gap.
>
>     Spare cable was ordered from France and was installed middle of 2023,
>     restoring the TDCE to service.
>
>     Then, on 29 June 2024, an earthquake near the volcanoes caused yet
>     more
>     debris to descend on the cable, obliterating 13.7 km of it and
>     cutting
>     service to both Vava'u and Ha'apai again. Cable ship MV Lodbrog was
>     brought in from Singapore with 60 km of spares but got delayed in
>     Fiji
>     due to mechanical issues. The cable was repaired on 16 August
>     2024, in
>     the same location. The operators were well aware of the risk, however
>     re-routing the cable would have required it to be lengthened, with
>     the
>     need to insert repeaters, upgrade terminal equipment, and conduct
>     a new
>     marine survey, which would have meant further delays.
>
>     On 26 August 2024, 11:29 am, a M6.9 quake struck in the area at a
>     depth
>     of about 106 km. Our Science building in Auckland has a "citizen
>     science" seismograph with a big display in its foyer, and my
>     student and
>     I noticed the very prominent event as we returned from lunch.
>     Little did
>     we know that this wasn't as close to home as we'd thought, but would
>     touch us in other ways that week. You've guessed it: The cable has
>     been
>     cut again, the cable ship's been recalled, and nobody quite knows
>     what
>     they'll find this time.
>
>     https://matangitonga.to/2024/08/27/domestic-submarine-cable-out-again-after-haapai-earthquake-yesterday
>
>     The latest plan I know of was to repair in the same location again,
>     using armored spares - but they know that this may not prevent
>     further
>     damage. Geological advice is that any decent quake in the area will
>     cause further submarine landslides in the coming years until the area
>     has settled.
>
>     Meanwhile, Starlink has been licensed to operate commercially in
>     Tonga.
>     For many Pacific Island countries, this is a double-edged sword:
>     On the
>     one hand, this provides short-term relief, on the other hand, it
>     deprives local ISPs of customers and therefore impacts on
>     aspirations to
>     achieve cable connectivity which could provide more bandwidth in the
>     medium term.
>
>     Some island nations have not yet licensed Starlink, but allow
>     Starlink
>     units on regional roaming plans to operate there. In some cases,
>     there
>     are now hundreds of such units operating in individual cells. This
>     appears to be causing Starlink some headaches in terms of capacity -
>     we've seen them being creative when it comes to user density
>     management
>     before. What happens if Starlink are going to be licensed there but
>     can't offer fixed service on the ground because of the large
>     number of
>     roaming subscribers already there? I understand that some of these
>     "roaming" users have been contacted by Starlink with a request to
>     either
>     take these units back to their home location country where they are
>     registered (which isn't likely to happen given the cost involved) or
>     register them in the country they're currently in (not possible in
>     some
>     cases for lack of local fixed service offered).
>
>     Ulrich
>
>
>     -- 
>     ****************************************************************
>     Dr. Ulrich Speidel
>
>     School of Computer Science
>
>     Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
>
>     The University of Auckland
>     u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz
>     http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
>     ****************************************************************
>
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     Starlink mailing list
>     Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
>     https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>
>
>
> -- 
> Artists/Musician Campout Aug 9-11
> https://www.eventbrite.com/e/healing-arts-event-tickets-928910826287
> Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos

-- 
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)

The University of Auckland
u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz  
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
****************************************************************



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Re: [Starlink] An update on Tonga

[Ulrich Speidel]

On 2/09/2024 2:26 pm, Michael Richardson wrote:
> Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>      > There were quite a few folk on this list a couple of years back who were
>      > interested in what was happening to Internet in Tonga after the big volcanic
>      > eruption there. I'm not sure where I left off.
>
> Thank you for the update.
>
>      > Spare cable was ordered from France and was installed middle of 2023,
>      > restoring the TDCE to service.
>
> How long was the outage caused by lack of spare cable?
About 18 months. The eruption was in January 2022, the cable was 
repaired middle of last year.
> Is there an effort to keep more spare cable closer?
Yes. That was one of the lessons learned. After the eruption, the cable 
ship that went to Tonga to repair the damage called at the Subcom depot 
in Apia enroute to the cable grounds and pretty much loaded all 
available spare cable, including cable spares borrowed from other 
systems, many of which were used in the repair of the international 
cable and needed to be returned. It's worth knowing in this context that 
a "typical" cable fault is anchor damage in relatively shallow water, 
which doesn't need a lot of spare cable to fix. The worst case fault 
normally considered is a single-location break at ocean depth of around 
5000 m, and again that requires less than 10 km of cable to fix. So most 
cable systems will not keep more than a couple of patches of a dozen km 
or so as spares. But if a volcano or major landslide destroys dozens of 
km of cable, then obviously that takes a lot more spare cable to remedy.
>
>      > location. The operators were well aware of the risk, however re-routing the
>      > cable would have required it to be lengthened, with the need to insert
>      > repeaters, upgrade terminal equipment, and conduct a new marine survey, which
>      > would have meant further delays.
>
> Is this on the long-term plan?
Yes and no - they've certainly been looking at alternatives for a while, 
including the Hawaiki spur to Vava'u that I talked of in my other 
e-mail, and using different cable routes and / or microwave links to 
Ha'apai from both ends.
>
>      > On 26 August 2024, 11:29 am, a M6.9 quake struck in the area at a depth of
>      > about 106 km. Our Science building in Auckland has a "citizen science"
>      > seismograph with a big display in its foyer, and my student and I noticed the
>
> That's pretty neat.

If you ever find yourself in Auckland, it's in Building 303, a five 
minute stroll up from Queen Street, the building on the corner of 
Princes Street and Wellesley Street - the entrance about 50 m up Princes 
Street. Walk straight in through both sets of glass sliding doors and 
you can't miss. The seismometer is right there, too.

The current seismogram can be found here:

https://nzseis-stations.auckland.ac.nz/stations/AUCK/latest.png

The seismogram of the event is here:

https://nzseis-stations.auckland.ac.nz/stations/AUCK/p202408261316.png

>
>      > Meanwhile, Starlink has been licensed to operate commercially in Tonga. For
>      > many Pacific Island countries, this is a double-edged sword: On the one hand,
>      > this provides short-term relief, on the other hand, it deprives local ISPs of
>      > customers and therefore impacts on aspirations to achieve cable connectivity
>      > which could provide more bandwidth in the medium term.
>
> Yeah.  I see those edges.
>
-- 
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)

The University of Auckland
u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
****************************************************************

Re: [Starlink] An update on Tonga

[Ulrich Speidel]

Word from Tonga Cable that the break on the domestic cable was fixed on 
Friday. This time, it was a much smaller slip and no significant amount 
of cable was lost, they used about 4 km of spares (owing almost entirely 
to the deployment depth and the need for slack during the repair).

They are currently considering two alternative routes from Tongatapu to 
Ha'apai, but this needs a marine survey, and getting a spur coming in to 
Vava'u from the Hawaiki cable currently has priority. They hope that 
that spur should be in place by about September next year.

On 31/08/2024 7:35 pm, Ulrich Speidel wrote:
> Howdy all,
>
> There were quite a few folk on this list a couple of years back who 
> were interested in what was happening to Internet in Tonga after the 
> big volcanic eruption there. I'm not sure where I left off.
>
> To re-cap, Tonga lost about 90 km of its international connection to 
> Fiji at the time (a few dozen km of that could be recovered), and an 
> amount of cable of similar magnitude on the Tonga Domestic Cable 
> Extension (TDCE) that ran a fibre pair each to both Vava'u and Ha'apai 
> from the main island Tongatapu. The TDCE is one of the longer 
> unrepeatered stretches of submarine cable in the world and runs in a 
> submarine trench just downhill from the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai 
> volcano and its siblings in the chain. Simulations at the timed showed 
> that this trench likely received a large amount of the material that 
> was ejected from the volcano, likely several cubic kilometres, and 
> acted as a kind of gutter that guided the material away from the 
> volcano in turbidity flows stretching over hundreds of km. At the 
> time, the cable ship sent to repair was unable to repair the TDCE for 
> lack of spare cable - nothing was recoverable from the seafloor, and 
> there was not enough spare cable in the South Pacific to bridge the gap.
>
> Spare cable was ordered from France and was installed middle of 2023, 
> restoring the TDCE to service.
>
> Then, on 29 June 2024, an earthquake near the volcanoes caused yet 
> more debris to descend on the cable, obliterating 13.7 km of it and 
> cutting service to both Vava'u and Ha'apai again. Cable ship MV 
> Lodbrog was brought in from Singapore with 60 km of spares but got 
> delayed in Fiji due to mechanical issues. The cable was repaired on 16 
> August 2024, in the same location. The operators were well aware of 
> the risk, however re-routing the cable would have required it to be 
> lengthened, with the need to insert repeaters, upgrade terminal 
> equipment, and conduct a new marine survey, which would have meant 
> further delays.
>
> On 26 August 2024, 11:29 am, a M6.9 quake struck in the area at a 
> depth of about 106 km. Our Science building in Auckland has a "citizen 
> science" seismograph with a big display in its foyer, and my student 
> and I noticed the very prominent event as we returned from lunch. 
> Little did we know that this wasn't as close to home as we'd thought, 
> but would touch us in other ways that week. You've guessed it: The 
> cable has been cut again, the cable ship's been recalled, and nobody 
> quite knows what they'll find this time.
>
> https://matangitonga.to/2024/08/27/domestic-submarine-cable-out-again-after-haapai-earthquake-yesterday 
>
>
> The latest plan I know of was to repair in the same location again, 
> using armored spares - but they know that this may not prevent further 
> damage. Geological advice is that any decent quake in the area will 
> cause further submarine landslides in the coming years until the area 
> has settled.
>
> Meanwhile, Starlink has been licensed to operate commercially in 
> Tonga. For many Pacific Island countries, this is a double-edged 
> sword: On the one hand, this provides short-term relief, on the other 
> hand, it deprives local ISPs of customers and therefore impacts on 
> aspirations to achieve cable connectivity which could provide more 
> bandwidth in the medium term.
>
> Some island nations have not yet licensed Starlink, but allow Starlink 
> units on regional roaming plans to operate there. In some cases, there 
> are now hundreds of such units operating in individual cells. This 
> appears to be causing Starlink some headaches in terms of capacity - 
> we've seen them being creative when it comes to user density 
> management before. What happens if Starlink are going to be licensed 
> there but can't offer fixed service on the ground because of the large 
> number of roaming subscribers already there? I understand that some of 
> these "roaming" users have been contacted by Starlink with a request 
> to either take these units back to their home location country where 
> they are registered (which isn't likely to happen given the cost 
> involved) or register them in the country they're currently in (not 
> possible in some cases for lack of local fixed service offered).
>
> Ulrich
>
>
-- 
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)

The University of Auckland
u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
****************************************************************