Major outage today 30th March from 5.30pm!

[#1]

Just incase people don't know this already...
https://portal.plus.net/supportpages.html?a=2&support_action=messages&ispservice_id=adsldial
"30/03/2011 @ 19:58
This is an update to this evening's post about a major service outage that is currently affecting parts of BT Wholesale's network.

The problem surfaced at around 5.30pm this evening at which point a significant number of our broadband customers were disconnected from the Internet. At the time of writing these customers are still unable to get back online.

BT have attributed the problem to a fibre cut in the Slough area, however please be mindful that the loss of connectivity is being experienced by customers up and down the country. It is also affecting other ISPs as well as Plusnet.

We will continue to monitor the situation for updates and will post further information as soon as it becomes available.

The next Service Status update is due by 10.00pm this evening.

Please accept our apologies for the continued inconvenience.

Kind regards,

Bob Pullen
Customer Support"
Good excuse to use my phone's personal hotspot, but I'd still prefer my broadband working again...

[#2]

I'm in Slough, and anyone who has been here recently is sure to know about the enormous amount of roadworks occurring on the A4, on the largest roundabout  in the town.  They have literally dug up most of the roads, for some reason.
Of course, the main telephone exchange (which houses the Slough supernode for 20 and 21CN) is a few hundred metres away from said roadworks.

Anyway, I'm on my backup 3G dongle at the moment, and I'm not expecting to see connectivity any time soon

[#3]

I'm also in Slough, but am still able to connect to t'internet without having to use the mobile network. I wonder how long it'll last.
You're right about all the roadworks in Slough. Isn't all the traffic flowing more freely since they turned the traffic lights off a few weeks ago?

[#4]

It /may/ not be due to problems in Slough. Have a read of my post here.

[#5]

Thanks for keeping us updated, even though you can't do much more than telling us what BT has told you.
Even if it's not due to the fibre being cut in Slough, I'll shout abuse at the road workers as I cycle past today.

[#6]

Quote from: Rob

I'll shout abuse at the road workers as I cycle past today.

I giggled a little bit at that remark
Looks like people are getting up and running now! In all honesty, I was rather astonished! I've not seen an MSO go on that long and on that scale in a long time!

[#7]

I did shout abuse, but I don't think they heard me over the noise of the JCB that they were using to dig up another fibre optic cable. There were no BT vans around, so hopefully the problem has been fixed.
Maybe a silly question, but why wasn't this listed as a "major service outage" on http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/mso.php ?

[#8]

It will be days before this is finally "fixed", because thanks to how the system works that's how long it will take for speeds to rise back to normal again mine included.
Shame that part of the system didn't brake down, permanently.

[#9]

Quote from: Rob

Maybe a silly question, but why wasn't this listed as a "major service outage" on http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/mso.php ?

Because that page only parses the MSO emails sent to/from a particular recipient/sender. The notices we received from BTw about last night's/this morning's outage were sent via alternative avenues.

[#10]

Can we ALL claim a refund from Plusnet for loss of service, then PN can pass on the cost to BT ?
Lost access to a major WoW raid run lastnight due to the LoS. 

[#11]

Indeed, the outage caused us major loss of enjoyment of the service too. I ended up putting a couple of quid on the dongle but I shouldn't of needed to. Additionally the dongle has more lag so its not so good for gaming despite being excellent for general internet usage and non time sensitive stuff.

[#12]

In Swindon the outage continued beyond midnight of 2011-03-30 Wed., when I powered off my router for the night. I had rebooted and power-cycled the router several times that evening, changed out the filter and DSL cable, and tried using another, older, router.
The outage seems to have missed Highworth, a small town near Swindon also in the 01973 area but with its own telephone exchange. After 10 p.m. I called another PlusNet customer in Highworth, who had rebooted the router earlier that evening after a dropout but had reconnected OK. This has happened several times before, so I guess that this was merely a router problem.
Here are links to an explanation of the outage other than a broken fibre cable. The outage spread outside the PlusNet group.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/4629-bt-equipment-problem-takes-9000-broadband-users-offline.html
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/zen/3987358-bt-outage-slough-node-21cn-connections.html
--
Lorenzo il Mediocre

[#13]

Welcome to the Forum Lorenzo

[#14]

@Bob Pullen: Thanks.
@PamWest: I expect that we all can claim a refund for the loss of service. I'm equally sure that PlusNet will rightly refuse to pay any money, so there will be no cost to pass onto BT.
@LorenzoMediocre: Thanks for the links. I'll have a look when I get time.

[#15]

ADSL is provided as a "best effort" service, rather than a service with an SLA so I suspect requests for compensation would be dismissed
However, taking a Value package on a Market 3 exchange, you could calculate the refund as follows:
(£6.49 / 30 days in month / 24 hours in day) * 9 hour outage = £0.08
Doesn't really seem worth it?
B.