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Broadband outage

HairyMcbiker
All Star
Posts: 6,792
Thanks: 266
Fixes: 21
Registered: ‎16-02-2009

Re: Broadband outage

Wondered what had happened last night, went to listen to my usual Internet Radio Station, and nothing, checked the router and no ppp, so fired up the pc tried to connect same, rebooted router still same  Cry
Thought sod it off to bed, everything powered off.. Tried this morning and it connected at 9am, then got the service emails saying the Edinburgh exchange was down (CapX) Thought hmm  Crazy
Now another saying it is still down in some areas, lucky me I am connected  Cheesy
HairyMcbiker
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Registered: ‎16-02-2009

Re: Broadband outage

@Oldjim there has been another one since then saying some are still effected  Lips_are_sealed
mal0z
Grafter
Posts: 3,486
Registered: ‎02-10-2008

Re: Broadband outage

broadband failure fixed, says BT
BT BT said engineering teams worked throughout the night to resolve the technical issue
A technical fault that left tens of thousands of homes without internet broadband has been fixed, BT has said.
The company said the problems affected a "significant part of the UK", including Northern Ireland, Scotland and northern England, on Friday night.
Engineers worked through the night to correct the fault at an exchange in the Edinburgh area, BT said in a statement.
A spokesman said the situation was being monitored and phone services had not been not affected.
"Following a technical fault at an exchange in the Edinburgh area last night which caused disruption to some broadband services, BT confirms that all services have been restored to customers," he said.
"BT's engineering teams worked throughout the night to resolve outstanding customer issues and to monitor the performance of the network."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11656851
fourfourdevon
Grafter
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Registered: ‎10-09-2010

Re: Broadband outage

Clearly BT/BBC were wrong, that story was put up at 8:40am, yet at 9:49am Plusnet note that the fault is ongoing and BT's own tracking system as 10:50am show no resolution to the fault.
Oldjim
Resting Legend
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Registered: ‎15-06-2007

Re: Broadband outage

Quote from: Hairy
@Oldjim there has been another one since then saying some are still effected  Lips_are_sealed
original post edited  Grin
AWB70
Aspiring Pro
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Registered: ‎28-08-2007

Re: Broadband outage

I'm not on 21CN but mine went down about 8 ish and came back on about 1am. This is the second time the Edinburgh exchange has put vast areas down. I'm sure it did the same thing about 4 or 5 weeks ago.
I spent the time finishing off single player campaigns on the PS3, always good to leave some levels unfinished just for times like this  Grin
ReedRichards
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Registered: ‎14-07-2009

Re: Broadband outage

Quote from: fourfourdevon
I'm afraid a ring wouldn't rate as resilient in my book two points of failure and you divide the network in two.

You're missing my point.  Telephones used circuit switching. For resiliency they used interconnected rings, a system known as SDH in Europe and SONET in North America. Typically these systems are rated to have a 99.999% uptime.  Anything with 50% spare capacity is extremely resilient and very expensive, because you pay for twice the capacity you use, until you get a failure.
Internet traffic is designed around packet switching and a mesh architecture.  Yes, this was designed to be highly resilient but does this work in practise when different parts of the internet network are controlled by different companies?  It's no good saying it is resilient when self-evidently BT's bit wasn't.  Maybe BT could have re-routed their lost internet traffic via somebody else's network but they didn't want to pay the cost of doing that?  Or maybe they sacrificed resiliency to make their internet service cheap?  Any resiliency requires that you have more capacity than you need when the network is fully operational and spare capcity is expensive.
between1and16ch
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Registered: ‎24-09-2008

Re: Broadband outage

Can someone help me to understand why I was outright refused dialup access by the faults reporting line last night when I asked for access due to the broadband outage? I'm too rural here for mobile coverage, so can't have that as a backup, and since it's been offered in the past, I hadn't got an alternative dial-up emergency provider prepared.
Angry
fourfourdevon
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Re: Broadband outage

@ReedRichards: You misunderstand the point too I'm afraid.
A resilient network (and I mean IP network) is one where your network are able to deal with the problem at hand (the "internet" is a network of networks).  And I know resilient systems are expensive, I used to design, build and maintain resilient network (IP) systems, not on the scale BT does or needs to, but I still did it.  The issue of resilience of the "internet" is irrelevant to this discussion since the internet was in effect unaffected, it doesn't seem that BT lost the ability route traffic around its network, if it had I think the problem would have been hitting more people with different types of problems, this was a problem as best as I can see of authentication, or some part of the identification process, and for some bizarre reason, great swathes of the country seem to be wholly reliant on the Edinborough exchange for this.
There is no, on the surface of it, reason for this, BT could have multiple identification/authentication systems distributed across its IP network, all capable of performing the job needed, and say on a bad day 100 identification/authentication units are needed to get the job done, distributing a further 25 units around the network would mean BT could loose 20% of its identification/authentication capacity before there would be any degregation in service.
Steve
Seasoned Pro
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Registered: ‎13-07-2009

Re: Broadband outage

So It made the BBC news eh!! Good, Mines went down from around 7pm Last night to 1am, Knew something quite major must of happened when that little light on my Router was not turning  green from red after a couple hours.
If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
Oldjim
Resting Legend
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Registered: ‎15-06-2007

Re: Broadband outage

It gets worse http://usertools.plus.net/status/archive/1288446411.htm
20CN Connectivity Issues (64225) - NEW
Internet Connectivity
Posted on: Saturday 30 October 2010, 14:46
We have been made aware that a number of customers are not able to connect to the internet on the 20CN network. This seems to be effecting the North of England, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
Updates will be posted when they are available.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.
Kind Regards,

Jonathon Smith
Customer Support
Steve
Seasoned Pro
Posts: 6,853
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Registered: ‎13-07-2009

Re: Broadband outage

Just spotted that and was away to post here ;D, This Is not good, I have connection so far.....
If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
madhouse
Newbie
Posts: 1
Registered: ‎31-10-2010

Re: Broadband outage

I saw the service update and got all excited...
30/10/2010 @ 23:01 20CN Connectivity Issues (64225) - RESOLVED
This is a further update to the previous postings about problems connecting to the broadband network yesterday and today.
We are glad to advise that service has been restored and customers previously affected by this issue should now be able to connect successfully. This has been fully confirmed with our suppliers.
If you are unable to get back on-line then please power your broadband equipment off for 10 minutes before trying to reconnect. If this is unsuccessful, please contact the Support Team through the usual channels.
We are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.
--
Regards, Craig Furniss
However I still cannot connect to my broadband - so phoned up customer service and was advised that it was an "ongoing issue" when I asked how long it would be ongoing for I was advised to check every hour... and then eventually told that it could be ongoing until Tuesday.
Quote from: between1and16cha
Can someone help me to understand why I was outright refused dialup access by the faults reporting line last night when I asked for access due to the broadband outage? I'm too rural here for mobile coverage, so can't have that as a backup, and since it's been offered in the past, I hadn't got an alternative dial-up emergency provider prepared.
Angry

We are quite rural too (which is probably why it will take longer for our internet to be fixed *rolls eyes*) however I was fortunate enough to be able to nip to my mums and hog her internet. I checked all the mobile broadband providers and luckily enough (and much to my surprise) Three offer coverage where we are - they were the only provider who did... I nipped to Argos and got a PAYG dongle thing (and tbh it seems just as fast as the broadband plusnet normally provide me with!)
pierre_pierre
Grafter
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Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Broadband outage

Welcome to the Forum
Its not just you there seems to be a rather large number of people in the north of the UK in the same problem
b1ll10n5
Newbie
Posts: 1
Registered: ‎31-10-2010

Re: Broadband outage

Plusnet Service Status. 20CN Connectivity Issues (64225) - RESOLVED
NOPE!! It isn't resolved for everyone, obviously.
I still can't connect and have been told that it might be down until tuesday! I also live in a rural area but I can't see that being the reason as the majority of people I have spoken to locally, have got their internet back up and running.
So plusnet please update your service status page to say that there are still ongoing issues.. please!