Cable Forum - View Single Post - internet going off Paisley, Renfrewshire area

LLM · 06-07-2012, 13:44

Virgin experienced an outage affecting around 8000 broadband customers supplied from its head-end at Paisley, Renfrewshire yesterday. The outage lasted for several hours but was apparently resolved around mid-afternoon.

This is the latest in a string of problems which have beset broadband customers in this area since Virgin upgraded its servers sometime around three months ago.

Since then we, like many other customers, have suffered repeated drop-outs from connectivity. The server upgrades as such have received virtually no publicity and we have assumed they are in tandem with the double speed upgrades currently being rolled out.

Typically these problems manifest themselves to us like this:

• Wireless or direct Ethernet connection to SuperHub OK
• Internet connectivity reported as OK
• No DHCP server connection, so no pages are displayed to the browser which times out.
• Hub connectivity logs display large numbers of Critical (3) connectivity errors, mostly DHCP related
• Occasionally the internet connection will drop from the Hub altogether.

If the Hub is reset, sometimes an internet connection will be re-established, but the process is random.

We have had two new SuperHubs, all local and client connections have been verified as sound. The problem is clearly a server-side issue and needs urgent attention otherwise we shall be taking our business elsewhere which will be a pity since up until this spring Virgin had delivered highly stable internet connectivity.

We have now discovered that Virgin’s internet servers are outsourced to Motorola which is responsible for the upgrades. Local engineers serving you and me – the customers – have no direct access to the Motorola side of the network and we detect a growing frustration that they are bearing the brunt of complaints while being unable to take direct steps to fix the problems.

Our information is that there have been ‘significant’ broadband issues since the server upgrades. The true extent of these has been buried in the mass of conflicting fault reports which come from customers. As in any outsourcing agreement, there is also scope for finger-pointing between the principal (Virgin) and the sub-contractor (Motorola).

It is clear from browsing this forum, that similar outages are occurring across the Virgin network. We have posted this to a local thread, but if anyone can shed any further light on this issue, go right ahead.

06-07-2012, 13:44	#4
LLM Inactive Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: Glasgow Posts: 4	Re: internet going off Paisley, Renfrewshire area Virgin experienced an outage affecting around 8000 broadband customers supplied from its head-end at Paisley, Renfrewshire yesterday. The outage lasted for several hours but was apparently resolved around mid-afternoon. This is the latest in a string of problems which have beset broadband customers in this area since Virgin upgraded its servers sometime around three months ago. Since then we, like many other customers, have suffered repeated drop-outs from connectivity. The server upgrades as such have received virtually no publicity and we have assumed they are in tandem with the double speed upgrades currently being rolled out. Typically these problems manifest themselves to us like this: • Wireless or direct Ethernet connection to SuperHub OK • Internet connectivity reported as OK • No DHCP server connection, so no pages are displayed to the browser which times out. • Hub connectivity logs display large numbers of Critical (3) connectivity errors, mostly DHCP related • Occasionally the internet connection will drop from the Hub altogether. If the Hub is reset, sometimes an internet connection will be re-established, but the process is random. We have had two new SuperHubs, all local and client connections have been verified as sound. The problem is clearly a server-side issue and needs urgent attention otherwise we shall be taking our business elsewhere which will be a pity since up until this spring Virgin had delivered highly stable internet connectivity. We have now discovered that Virgin’s internet servers are outsourced to Motorola which is responsible for the upgrades. Local engineers serving you and me – the customers – have no direct access to the Motorola side of the network and we detect a growing frustration that they are bearing the brunt of complaints while being unable to take direct steps to fix the problems. Our information is that there have been ‘significant’ broadband issues since the server upgrades. The true extent of these has been buried in the mass of conflicting fault reports which come from customers. As in any outsourcing agreement, there is also scope for finger-pointing between the principal (Virgin) and the sub-contractor (Motorola). It is clear from browsing this forum, that similar outages are occurring across the Virgin network. We have posted this to a local thread, but if anyone can shed any further light on this issue, go right ahead.