Network down again

[onlynik]

Looks like the network is down again. Such a wonderful service. Seems every other week there is some issue. Got connected about 5 minutes ago but with the wrong Wan IP. Time to move I guess. 

[dujas]

Try elaborating more on the problem and your setup, then people might be able to offer some assistance.

[ou7shined]

Mine's down too. Big red light on my router.

[onlynik]

Try elaborating more on the problem and your setup, then people might be able to offer some assistance.

No point really. It's a network issue. I'm unable to ping the WAN gateway therefore I cannot get any further. The ip address for the gateway looks wrong too. At least I've got my iPhone.

[rgt247]

No problems for me on dls4.

[ou7shined]

I'm on dsl4 too
I've tried reboots, restores and a factory reset all to no avail. Still have a lovely shiny red light. I'm off to bed maybe it will be fixed by the morning.

[Rik]

No network problems were seen by IDNet overnight, so I'm wondering if BT were working at your exchanges, the midnight - 2am slot is a favourite with them.

[glen]

No network problems were seen by IDNet overnight, so I'm wondering if BT were working at your exchanges, the midnight - 2am slot is a favourite with them.

Yep had the the same problem from about 2 am until about 9 am this morning thought my router was knackered.

[Rik]

Did you have to re-boot to re-establish connection?

[glen]

Did you have to re-boot to re-establish connection?

No Rik , even after rebooting  still no connection, but it's working ok again at the moment.

[Rik]

So it just came back up? Sounds like BT work, they really are doing an awful lot right now - and they're not telling ISPs about most of it.

[ou7shined]

Mine's back up.
My stats have improved somewhat so I guess there may have been some work done down at the exchange. It went down at 00:30 on the nail. I have no way of knowing when it came back up because with all the resets I did on my router it had to sit dormant until I had the time to manually re-configure and connect it again today.

[Rik]

We do know BT are extra active right now, Rich, ahead of BT Retail's launch of WBC on Friday. They have been working at quite a frantic pace, as they seem to be re-writing the rule book as they go.

[glen]

So it just came back up? Sounds like BT work, they really are doing an awful lot right now - and they're not telling ISPs about most of it.

I did call support and they weren't aware of anything from BT , but as I said it's working ok now just.

[Rik]

I checked with Simon first thing, and they had no issues with their network and no advisories from BT. The latter situation is quite common atm.

[glen]

What with BT wanting to put their customers on 20mb connection, I would imagine they're struggling with all this extra work.

[onlynik]

My ADSL came back up at around 4.30 am.  That's a 4 and a half hour outage.

It did start just after 12, so could quite well be BT work, however it seems strange that it was only IDnet that was affected and that my neighbours with different companies had no issues.

[onlynik]

My ADSL came back up at around 4.30 am.  That's a 4 and a half hour outage.

It did start just after 12, so could quite well be BT work, however it seems strange that it was only IDnet that was affected and that my neighbours with different companies had no issues.

So I don't think it was local exchange work.

[dujas]

Could your neighbour's ISP be via LLU?

[onlynik]

Could your neighbour's ISP be via LLU?

Nope, BT.

[Rik]

So I don't think it was local exchange work.

Could be it was work on upgrading a particular VP, VLAN, DSLAM or MSAN. You'd need to get a lot more information to pinpoint the problem. Only two people have reported any issues here, none on ThinkBroadband, so it still 'feels' local to me.

[esh]

No issues on gw5.

[onlynik]

Could be it was work on upgrading a particular VP, VLAN, DSLAM or MSAN. You'd need to get a lot more information to pinpoint the problem. Only two people have reported any issues here, none on ThinkBroadband, so it still 'feels' local to me.

I'm not overly worried about it.  However what does annoy me is that it is always the off peak (midnight - 9am) that takes the hit, and if i've sheduled downloads they can run into the peak time.  Additionally, I'm usually up at midnight so losing the internet then kinda annoys me.

I've been with IDNet for about 3 months now, and it hasn't been the best of times.  I think there has been 4-5 outages (maybe not all IDNet's fault) and speed issues (which now have been resolved) but it doesn't really give me that warm cosy feeling.

I've actually started to look at other ISP's again.

[Rik]

Your call, you have to do what suits you best. I can only tell you that, in the past three months, the only outages I've seen have all been down to BT.

[rireed3]

Bear in mind that most packages do not come with any form of SLA, therefore compensation is unlikely.

Isn't that always the way?  

It's too bad IDNet would have to defend a Trading Standards action, but I don't see how they can allocate Peak and Off-peak allowances in the circumstance that they can almost predict that random customers will lose out because of overnight 'maintenance'.  Even the rail companies can't do that all the time, but then BT are quite special  

Richard

[Rik]

OTOH, how many people are experiencing issues and for how long? In the past three months, I've had one engineering outage ~2hrs and two major service outages, about 4 hours each. Say 10 hours down time in 2100 hours, 0.5%.

[onlynik]

Isn't that always the way?  

It's too bad IDNet would have to defend a Trading Standards action, but I don't see how they can allocate Peak and Off-peak allowances in the circumstance that they can almost predict that random customers will lose out because of overnight 'maintenance'.  Even the rail companies can't do that all the time, but then BT are quite special  

Richard

Easy, bring the off peak froward by a couple of hours, say 2200 - 0800 rather than 0000 - 0900 ( I know I've added another hour in, just being cheeky)

[Colin Burns]

Exchange: Aberdeen Denburn
Product: Home SuperPro (ADSL2+)
Status: Router not connecting, then connecting able to ping WAN IP address, unable to ping WAN gateway or DNS servers.  When I was unable to connect I had PPP errors (line still synced at 24Meg(ish))
Logs: No logging yet.  Will look in to that tonight.

One other thing is teh support 24x7?

do your neibours use bog standard ADSL or ADSL2+

as that might explain it

[rireed3]

One other thing is teh support 24x7?

I haven't used this for a while, but there was an out-of-hours answerphone that helped me a couple of times:

01462476556

[onlynik]

OTOH, how many people are experiencing issues and for how long? In the past three months, I've had one engineering outage ~2hrs and two major service outages, about 4 hours each. Say 10 hours down time in 2100 hours, 0.5%.

Or 1.25% if you take off peak only.

However it is pretty irrelevant.  Outages will happen.  I'm not sure which is better though.  Slow speeds or outages.

I'm thinking outages.

[Rik]

Exchange: Aberdeen Denburn
Product: Home SuperPro (ADSL2+)
Status: Router not connecting, then connecting able to ping WAN IP address, unable to ping WAN gateway or DNS servers.  When I was unable to connect I had PPP errors (line still synced at 24Meg(ish))
Logs: No logging yet.  Will look in to that tonight.

One other thing is teh support 24x7?

Router not connecting indicates a BT issue, lack of sync is never an ISP issue. Support is not 24/7, though you will often get a reply in the small hours if you email them.

I know BT are rolling out new software to MSANs atm, this may have been to do with that. They are also still re-configuring the 21CN network to deal with issues that have been revealed in the past few months.

[Rik]

However it is pretty irrelevant.  Outages will happen.  I'm not sure which is better though.  Slow speeds or outages.

I'm thinking outages.

Difficult to say. The outages drove me mad, but I was able to switch to my other connection. The slow speeds were annoying, but didn't hugely affect my use of the 'net, possibly because I'm not used to high speeds.

[Rik]

I haven't used this for a while, but there was an out-of-hours answerphone that helped me a couple of times:

01462476556

That number's changed, Richard, use either 0800 710 2000 or 01462 480092.

[Rik]

PLEASE NOTE:

Three posts from this thread have been moved to the new loss of service reports thread.

[onlynik]

do your neibours use bog standard ADSL or ADSL2+

as that might explain it

Ooh, never though of that.  They are ADSL MAX. (Well the one I spoke to is)

[Colin Burns]

that would explain how they had service

[Rik]

Indeed, it points to an MSAN issue, or possibly a core 21CN node problem.

[Colin Burns]

its not very often i post somthing sensible oh Dear what have the modarators done to me 

[Rik]

Nothing yet, Colin, but just step this way... 

[Ray]

Will you be needing the rack for this, Rik, I've just oiled it. 

[Rik]

Thanks, Ray. If you could just give the Iron Maiden a quick hose out as well.

[Ray]

NP, Rik, consider it done. 

[Rik]

Thanks, Ray - and with that, 

[Ray]

Enjoy. 

[Colin Burns]

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo 

[karvala]

I've had about a dozen outages in the last week alone:-

(1) Around 1.00am on 14th
(2) Around 2.00am on 14th
(3) Around 11.00pm on 14th
(4) Around 2.00am on 15th
(5) Around 1.00am on 16th
(6) Around 7.30pm on 18th
(7) Around 8.30pm on 18th
(8) Around 9.30pm on 19th (yoyo for about an hour and a half)
(9) Around 2.00am on 20th
(10) Around 1.00am on 21st
(11) Around 11.30pm on 22nd
(12) Around 4.30am on 23rd
(13) Around 11.30pm on 23rd

It's probably significant that all of them without exception are in the evening or the middle of the night, and most of them only last a few minutes, with a couple lasting up to a couple of hours with a constant on-off behaviour before a proper connection was restored.  I suspect (hope!) it is BT work, and it'll cease within the next week or so.

[rireed3]

I agree that anything from 11PM to 5AM is suspicious, but the ones during evening peak time are unusual.  Have you eliminated line performance by looking at your stats?  If you always have a lot of errors or noise margin that frequently drops to a very low value, it makes you more vulnerable to occasional external noise, especially at night.

Rik has started a sticky thread on this topic called "Loss of service reports", so please re-post there where you are sure a perfectly good connection was suddenly cut off or authentication lost, almost always between 11pm and 5am, and often for some time, even hours.

Thanks,
Richard

[ogster]

I've been with Idnet for 6 months.

I had an outage one morning a couple of weeks ago. Big red light on Internet indicator. Phoned support, they confirmed it was a BT outage in our area since 3am. It was fixed by noon. Really not an Idnet problem there and I value having an ISP who you can call and they talk sense and don't treat you like an idiot.

Previously I had another issue that support helped trace to wiring issues in the house, plugging over to the BT master socket fixed it all.

Really you can do an awful lot worse in your ISP choice than Idnet!

[Rik]

I agree.

[Niall]

Easy, bring the off peak froward by a couple of hours, say 2200 - 0800 rather than 0000 - 0900 ( I know I've added another hour in, just being cheeky)

I'd actually love to see the peak times moved a bit. I really don't like leaving my PC on overnight, so the majority of my downloads are done at peak times. After all I'm highly unlikely to see a demo I want to download through Steam while I'm asleep! This month for example the UT3 free weekend thing was done on Steam plus I bought two new games in the month. This totalled well over 10gb with patches (UT3 alone was 8gb). I've also been watching a lot of guitar tutorials on various websites, which has had a good nibble at my allowance.

Due to all that, this month for the first time since I've been with IDnet (which I believe is nearly two years. It may be a bit over thinking about it!) I'm going to go over my limit by a few gb! It's a shame that IDnet don't look at your usage and take this into consideration. If there was a rolling tally of what I hadn't used in off peak kept, I'd probably have about 90% (probably more) of my off peak bandwidth left over that 2 year period.

I wonder how much money IDnet have saved with my not using any of that. Conversely I wonder how much more it's cost them having the offpeak times set as they are, "forcing" me to download during the day.

[Rik]

ISP pricing is based on an average, rather as mustard manufacturers are said to make their profits from the bits people leave on the plate. I'm sure if everyone fully used their allowance each month, prices would have to rise to reflect that fact. In the same way, the peak times are set for economic reasons. To move them would require an increase in pricing.

[Niall]

I thought as much. It would be a rather wonky business platform otherwise!

It irritates me when I've been forced into downloading things though. By that I mean patches and updates for things that really should be finished on release The whole Steam thing this month really annoyed me though. They touted it as a free weekend, implying the game was free, then after the weekend you have to buy it. If I'd known that before my 8gb download had finished, I'd have waited until I got paid and spent £5 on the DVD and installed it that way!

I really shouldn't be that bothered as I personally don't pay the ISP bill, but I do pay for it in earache, even though the network would be a net-doesn't-work if I wasn't here!

[Rik]

WBC would be a good move for you when you can, Niall.

[Niall]

Yeah I think it's March when I can get it, but I'm going to wait a bit for all the exchanges to upgrade and get all stabilised first. My connection is really fast and stable at the moment, with some drops in speed recently, which I'm assuming is due to BT as I know they're doing work around here (even though they're not saying anything) as I spoke to an engineer as I was on my way home the other day (I work opposite the exchange). He didn't actually tell me what they were doing, just that "they've been doing a lot of work everywhere lately". Rather vague, but hey, he'll probably get sacked if he opens his mouth, the way BT work

[Rik]

A lot of work everywhere sums up what we seem to have been observing, Niall. BT aren't bothering to tell ISPs, which doesn't help.

By March, I'd expect WBC to be fully stable, so I'd probably go for it immediately.

[Niall]

I'll let my mate try it first and see what happens to him after a month

Actually, lets use Den as a guinea pig

[Rik]

Will you tell him or shall I?

[Niall]

Will you tell him or shall I?

Over to you 

[Rik]

Thanks.