Federation Internet Services — Migration & Continuity Support
Maintaining 100% connectivity and critical service availability for a remote island territory during a complete subsea fibre outage — with no fallback, no tolerance for failure, and a fixed deadline.
100%
Service continuity maintained
Zero downtime during subsea maintenance
0
Critical services disrupted
Finance, health & telecoms all operational
2×
Independent connectivity paths
Subsea fibre + permanent Starlink layer
∞
Single point of failure risk
Eliminated for the first time
The Challenge
A territory with a single cable and no fallback
Federation Internet Services faced a scenario with no margin for error. Scheduled maintenance on the territory's sole subsea fibre connection meant a complete loss of internet connectivity — 100% downtime — for the full duration of the works.
For a territory where a single subsea cable carries all connectivity, the implications extended far beyond inconvenience. Financial institutions, healthcare providers, and telecommunications operators — critical infrastructure with zero tolerance for extended outages — were entirely dependent on a network with no redundancy, no diversity, and no fallback path.
The underlying problem extended beyond the maintenance window itself. The territory was wholly reliant on a single fibre route. If that cable failed, was cut, or required further maintenance, there was no alternative. The federation needed more than a short-term fix — it needed a fundamentally more resilient connectivity architecture.
Subsea maintenance
100% internet connectivity loss for the full maintenance window
Financial institutions
Live transaction processing and banking services at risk
Healthcare providers
Patient records, communications, and systems dependent on connectivity
Telecommunications
National telecoms infrastructure reliant on the single fibre route
Single point of failure
No redundancy, no diversity, no fallback — at national scale
The Solution
Independent connectivity, intelligent routing, and on-the-ground delivery
01
Starlink Aggregation & Deployment
Designed and deployed a Starlink aggregation solution providing an independent, satellite-based connectivity path entirely separate from the subsea fibre. The federation had a live, operational internet connection from the moment the fibre went dark — with no interruption to end users or critical services.
02
BGP Upstream Peer Build & Operations
Full BGP upstream peering architecture designed, built, and operationalised across both connectivity paths. This gave the federation intelligent traffic routing across upstreams, control over routing policy, and the technical foundation for long-term connectivity diversity — not just a temporary workaround.
03
On-Site & Remote Support
Frodingham Consulting provided on-site presence and remote technical support throughout the project alongside full project management and technical consultation. Coordinating infrastructure changes of this nature — across critical sectors, in a geographically isolated environment, against a fixed deadline — required precise planning and flawless execution.
Delivery Timeline
From scoping to live operations
01 — Discovery & Scoping
Assessed the territory's full connectivity dependency, the subsea maintenance window timeline, and the complete scope of critical sectors at risk. Defined the solution architecture required to maintain service continuity.
02 — Solution Design
Designed a Starlink aggregation topology and BGP upstream peering architecture to deliver independent connectivity paths and intelligent traffic routing across both upstreams — subsea and satellite.
03 — Deployment
On-site deployment of Starlink hardware alongside full BGP peering configuration and testing. Operational verification completed against the maintenance window deadline with remote support capability established.
04 — Live Operations
Managed live operations through the subsea maintenance window. Financial institutions, healthcare providers, and telecommunications operators remained fully operational with no service disruption.
05 — Handover & Ongoing
Starlink solution retained as a permanent diversity layer beyond the maintenance period. Frodingham Consulting continues as the technical partner for the territory's long-term routing diversity programme.
The Outcome
Zero disruption. Permanent resilience.
Critical services remained operational throughout the maintenance window. Financial institutions, healthcare providers, and telecommunications operators experienced no disruption during a period that, without intervention, would have resulted in complete connectivity loss across the territory.
The Starlink solution deployed during the project remained in place as a permanent diversity layer — giving the federation, for the first time, a connectivity architecture that does not depend entirely on the integrity of a single subsea cable.
Frodingham Consulting continues as the long-term technical partner for the territory's routing diversity programme — ensuring that no single cable, no single failure, and no single maintenance event can take the territory offline again.
In their words
"A territory connected by a single cable has a single point of failure. Frodingham identified that, designed a solution around it, delivered it on time, and stayed to make it permanent."
Federation Internet Services
Critical National Infrastructure · Remote Island Territory
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