National Broadband Outage

[Rob]

According to the VM status page the fault has now been resolved. On that basis anyone who still has an outage, that isn't resolved by a simple reboot of their modem / Set Top Box, should I beleive be calling faults.

[iTekweni]

My broadband has returned here in WA5 but speeds are still very slow hope it improves

[scurlaruntings]

Well im also a Network Engineer and have worked for ADSL resellers like Griffin who admittedly as a small ISP were garbage.I havent looked at the DOCSIS log on my modem and to be honest couldnt be bothered. Initially i noticed that the modem was synced but the modem wasnt picking up a routable IP address instead it picked up a NAT`ed address from NTL/Virgins DHCP.Obviously those address`s arent routable.Either way from a major vendor like VM i would expect better.Iv been with NTL for the best part of 8 years.I was with them when they were Encom and when they were bought out.There customer service was always crap but even on the old 128K lines they were VERY dependable.I dont recall EVER having an outage prior to VM taking over.Since stalin and co have taken the helm they have introduced traffic shaping, port throttling, and an aggresive "fair usage policy".There tech support lines are garbage and naturally there routed to India. They promise these high speeds of 20MB but simply dont have the infrastruture nor the backing and coperation of BT to make these ludicrous promises happen.Once 21Cn kicks off i doubt VM will even be able to keep up.Either way with a major ISP like this you would have thought there was some type of redundancy/failover on there network.There is NOT a single point of failure or a core switch from which an entire ISP can simply go down for hours thats just crazy.Ok rant over..

[jubbi]

Damn internet outage. I actually had to speak to the wife last night. I wonder if I can claim the money for the therapy I'm going to require after this back from VM?

Seriously though. Stop whining. You lost your internet for a few hours guys. do some thing else.

When I left for work at 8 mine was still down in Cas vegas btw.

[adam1942]

Originally Posted by scurlaruntings

Well im also a Network Engineer and have worked for ADSL resellers like Griffin who admittedly as a small ISP were garbage.I havent looked at the DOCSIS log on my modem and to be honest couldnt be bothered. Initially i noticed that the modem was synced but the modem wasnt picking up a routable IP address instead it picked up a NAT`ed address from NTL/Virgins DHCP.Obviously those address`s arent routable.Either way from a major vendor like VM i would expect better.Iv been with NTL for the best part of 8 years.I was with them when they were Encom and when they were bought out.There customer service was always crap but even on the old 128K lines they were VERY dependable.I dont recall EVER having an outage prior to VM taking over.Since stalin and co have taken the helm they have introduced traffic shaping, port throttling, and an aggresive "fair usage policy".There tech support lines are garbage and naturally there routed to India. They promise these high speeds of 20MB but simply dont have the infrastruture nor the backing and coperation of BT to make these ludicrous promises happen.Once 21Cn kicks off i doubt VM will even be able to keep up.Either way with a major ISP like this you would have thought there was some type of redundancy/failover on there network.There is NOT a single point of failure or a core switch from which an entire ISP can simply go down for hours thats just crazy.Ok rant over..

See dude, thats what I was thinking.. VM said they didnt know until 9:47 or something, so the hardware either rebooted itself.. or someone with unauthorized access did.. guess we will have to wait and see what VM say about it, if anything!

[PeteTheMusicGuy]

Went off here about 9.20 and was back around 11.15 Last night. Everyone has the odd network problem thats life I guess

[TimIgoe]

I'm wondering what they're going to say, if they are going to spin it to look better than it was 'a needed system reboot' instead of 'oh .... that went wrong' or if we're just not gonna get anything

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by scurlaruntings

They promise these high speeds of 20MB but simply dont have the infrastruture nor the backing and coperation of BT to make these ludicrous promises happen.Once 21Cn kicks off i doubt VM will even be able to keep up.

Why would they need the cooperation and backing of BT? They have their own network that is far more advanced than BT's. They don't just promise the speeds either, they deliver them for a huge number of people.

As for 21cn being something VM can't keep up with, sorry but 21cn still has the copper last mile problem, and BT are only going to be offering adsl2 over it, which only offers max speeds of 24meg. VM has nothing to worry about when it comes to adsl and speed it'll be a long time before BT think of moving over to something like vdsl2.

[xero01uk]

myself and a friend had connection problems in Wolverhampton from about 9pm till 1am when i went to bed, and it was still off then, not sure when it came back on though

[lostandconfused]

Originally Posted by bolt

Exactly you beat me to the post! Outages on in internet should occur no more often then losing regular telephone landline or electric supply.

10 years ago yes the internet and infrastructure was new but now there is no excuse and likewise i work off the net. No service , no money.


Im down in Newton Abbot SW and lost service since 9.20 pm last night till about 40 min ago. Thats a 12 hour outage!!

BTW "I work as a Network Administrator and things sometimes do break and it does take time to fix things you cant just expect someone to be able to fix a problem stright away."

Thats rubbish. I lived in 3rd world country for a number of years and my ADSL only went off once for 3 hours after a hurricane and 4 tropical storms. If they can do it then the super Brits UK should never go off line for more then a few minutes for upgrades. In fact losing electricity was a far bigger problem except i had backup supplies.

unless, you know of a way to provide a fault free serivce 100% of the time, day in, day out, i would stop short of calling it outrageous.

You could always try another provider, but they wouldnt be able to guarantee a fault free service either. And unless your BB is provided by BT a fault is going to take longer to fix, as it has to be either reported from the ISP, then BT need to relove it.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by sniper007

What is retentions direct number?

I bet your back later gloating about the reduction in service charges you will get from saying your leaving. Have the balls and leave because if you don't then what was the point of calling retentions other than to scam them for a reduction. ???????????????????

[scurlaruntings]

Originally Posted by TheDon

Why would they need the cooperation and backing of BT? They have their own network that is far more advanced than BT's. They don't just promise the speeds either, they deliver them for a huge number of people.

As for 21cn being something VM can't keep up with, sorry but 21cn still has the copper last mile problem, and BT are only going to be offering adsl2 over it, which only offers max speeds of 24meg. VM has nothing to worry about when it comes to adsl and speed it'll be a long time before BT think of moving over to something like vdsl2.

Because deregulation only dergulated the lines to allow other services over BT.Agreed VM have there own equipment but im pretty sure they dont have there own exchanges.You say they promise the speeds but iv dealt with umpteen VM customers including myself who have all complained about the speed.I am precisely 532 metres from my exchange and my speed is supposed to be 20MB.I get around 4MB.Understood it could be dslam profile problem,line rentention,noise,burst interleaving or even as you say the copper wire running to my house that can only support a max of 2mb, but the bottom line is its not the 20MB Vm promised.Im not saying there the worst ISP in the world by any stretch as there mostly reliable but since virgin have bought them out what was a stready NTL now seems to have more outages than is normal.Big ISP`s are supposed to have multiple redundancies on there network to prevent this.If i can do this for multi million pounds business`s why cant there own inhouse support? For the record 21CN if are fibre optic links.Admittedly i dont think the links between the exchanges and the customers house wont be fibre optic.Either way a mixture of both allows for far more capacity.Seeing as only the newer NTL modems can only offer 20MB max how is that going to keep up with a fibre link?

[weesteev]

Fault started for me around 9.30pm, freaked out at the thought of no interent I rebooted 3 or 4 times ans at 10pm it came back online (Edinburgh EH13 region). Pretty chuffed it was a very short outage, online lights flashing on V+ boxes and loss of interactive but that was back at 10.15pm and still active this morning as well.

Was I just lucky ?

The again im always getting a solid 20mb which is pretty useful for the old newsgroup "searches"

Hope everyone has their net back now, I know how you all felt with no connection... imagine having to speak to the wife for a night !! Disaster !

[Richy99]

Originally Posted by scurlaruntings

.I am precisely 532 metres from my exchange and my speed is supposed to be 20MB.I get around 4MB.?

your confused as cable connections do not use the telephone exchange like ADSL connections, VM uses a different system to ADSL which is what you are comparing

[TimIgoe]

Originally Posted by scurlaruntings

Because deregulation only dergulated the lines to allow other services over BT.Agreed VM have there own equipment but im pretty sure they dont have there own exchanges.You say they promise the speeds but iv dealt with umpteen VM customers including myself who have all complained about the speed.I am precisely 532 metres from my exchange and my speed is supposed to be 20MB.I get around 4MB.Understood it could be dslam profile problem,line rentention,noise,burst interleaving or even as you say the copper wire running to my house that can only support a max of 2mb, but the bottom line is its not the 20MB Vm promised.Im not saying there the worst ISP in the world by any stretch as there mostly reliable but since virgin have bought them out what was a stready NTL now seems to have more outages than is normal.Big ISP`s are supposed to have multiple redundancies on there network to prevent this.If i can do this for multi million pounds business`s why cant there own inhouse support? For the record 21CN if are fibre optic links.Admittedly i dont think the links between the exchanges and the customers house wont be fibre optic.Either way a mixture of both allows for far more capacity.Seeing as only the newer NTL modems can only offer 20MB max how is that going to keep up with a fibre link?

Speed to Exchange doesn't matter with Virgin Cable.

It does matter with Virgin DSL, but if thats the case, you've signed up to an 'up to 8Mb' package, rather than a 20Mb package.

You can't have multiple redundancy all the way from end to end - short of laying 2 cables to every house, and 2 modems at every house

21CN is currently still using copper from the exchange to the home, its only an improvement of the infrastructure within BT.