Complete loss of service

zappaDPJ · Oct 13, 2010, 02:21:07

Another night, another complete loss of service. That's now three nights in a row?

DorsetBoy · Oct 13, 2010, 05:29:29

That is simply unacceptable Zap, you must be losing serious amounts of income. Time to migrate a line elsewhere to get some redundancy there.

Steve · Oct 13, 2010, 07:51:22

That's no good at all!

BAP · Oct 13, 2010, 08:54:25

Quote from: zappaDPJ on Oct 13, 2010, 02:21:07
Another night, another complete loss of service. That's now three nights in a row?

That's unnerving news for me. seems quite a few customers are having outage problems, could be BT! I hope
Migrating to IDnet this week.

Gary · Oct 13, 2010, 09:33:11

Quote from: BAP on Oct 13, 2010, 08:54:25
That's unnerving news for me. seems quite a few customers are having outage problems, could be BT! I hope
Migrating to IDnet this week.

I'm not sure if its just FTTC but on ADSL max plain old vanilla style, all has been rock steady apart from the big outtage the other night. Before that i had gone 732 hours without any downtime at all, and it would have been longer but I had some cables moved.

BAP · Oct 13, 2010, 10:20:37

Quote from: Gary on Oct 13, 2010, 09:33:11
I'm not sure if its just FTTC but on ADSL max plain old vanilla style, all has been rock steady apart from the big outtage the other night. Before that i had gone 732 hours without any downtime at all, and it would have been longer but I had some cables moved.

You could right, although living on the isle of Wight FTTC is just a dream, asked a Openreach chap that lives a few doors away "WHEN" he said dream on.

Gary · Oct 13, 2010, 10:21:47

Quote from: BAP on Oct 13, 2010, 10:20:37
You could right, although living on the isle of Wight FTTC is just a dream, asked a Openreach chap that lives a few doors away "WHEN" he said dream on.

It's the same on the mainland as well it seems for some small exchanges.

Rik · Oct 13, 2010, 10:35:33

What have support said, Zap?

esh · Oct 13, 2010, 12:28:08

Is the physical link down or is it just PPPoE? Sounds really nasty anyway. Apart from BT's "mishap" on Sunday night it's been fine here.

sof2er · Oct 13, 2010, 13:21:59

Sounds quite unlucky zappa as my FTTC line has been rock solid apart from the outage a few days ago..never had an issue.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/ff1d69732d1703271905554d06a9f90f.html

JohnH · Oct 13, 2010, 13:30:26

I've been waiting since Friday for BT to fix my noisy line which is causing line drops and loss of sync. Called support several times and they say to give it until Friday which seems a bit long.

zappaDPJ · Oct 13, 2010, 14:14:16

I'm back on line, I don't know when. I'll look at it later when I've had some sleep. I had to go to another location to finish my work last night

Rik · Oct 13, 2010, 15:28:22

BT seem determined to destroy IDNet and other BTw dependent ISPs, Zap.

Rik · Oct 13, 2010, 15:30:06

Quote from: JohnH on Oct 13, 2010, 13:30:26
I've been waiting since Friday for BT to fix my noisy line which is causing line drops and loss of sync. Called support several times and they say to give it until Friday which seems a bit long.

Five working days.

Not good, but probably they are stuck in the hands of BT again. They had an engineer out to my noisy line in 2 hours, John, but that may have been good luck.

JohnH · Oct 13, 2010, 17:02:39

When I spoke to support on Monday, they said that the BT systems were showing a fix time by Tuesday (yesterday).
I called yesterday late afternoon and said that it didn't look as though they were going to show up and I was told they would get an update and call me, since it seemed to have "disappeared off the BT system" This didn't happen.

So I called again this morning, mentioned last night's conversation and was told that it hadn't disappeared from the system and was still showing in process, albeit with a fix date of yesterday.

I mentioned that I had been waiting in for two days this week, waiting for BT to show and was told I did not need to do this, because the fault had been identified as external and if BT needed access, IDNet would call to fix an appointment.

Personally, I think that BT have forgotten about it and need a kick. I am not very happy about this situation, particularly as I was originally told it was likely 24 hours for a resolution and then Tuesday latest.

Rik · Oct 13, 2010, 17:05:09

BT reported no fault on my line for 10 days at the beginning of the year, John, before sending an engineer to the exchange where he found a faulty line card. They are a law unto themselves.

JohnH · Oct 13, 2010, 17:24:00

So is there nothing that IDNet can do if BT don't show up in reasonable time?

Rik · Oct 13, 2010, 17:34:07

There seems to be a misunderstanding, John, an engineering visit hasn't been requested, the fault is with BT's engineering team, who haven't yet traced the problem. When they do, if an engineer's visit is required, IDNet will contact you to make the appointment. They are keeping on at BT, but noise can be difficult to trace - there are so many joints in the cable between you and the exchange.

JohnH · Oct 13, 2010, 18:12:42

There's some contradictory information here, which just makes this worse.

IDnet (James) told me on Monday that BT had identified the fault as between my master socket and the road outside the house.
That makes sense to me (as I told him) because the last time I had something similar was about 2 1/2 years ago when after heavy rain, the duct outside in which the cables are located filled up with rainwater and the cables sat immersed in it.

I am very tempted to go outside and try and lift the lid, to see if it is the same this time.

Rik · Oct 13, 2010, 18:18:02

Perhaps the best thing to do would be to phone James in the morning, John, because I can only relay what I've been told.

JohnH · Oct 13, 2010, 18:21:23

I can't, because I am working all day with an early start and the same applies to Friday.
Can I request an engineering visit, do you know?

Rik · Oct 13, 2010, 18:24:26

Afaik, yes, with the usual proviso about charging. Could you not email support? I can try again with James in the morning if you like.

JohnH · Oct 13, 2010, 18:29:44

Yes, that's what I will do because I have noticed over the last day or so that my second line has the same problem, albeit not as bad, and the cables for that sit in the same duct.

I will email support tonight requesting an engineering visit for next Monday or soon as possible thereafter for both lines (they are both with IDNet). Fortunately, I am off all next week. Of course, I understand the charging scenario.

I would really appreciate if you would mention this to James and thanks very much for your kind offer of help. I will PM you my two line numbers.

Thanks again, Rik.

John

Rik · Oct 13, 2010, 18:31:01

NP. John.

Lona · Oct 13, 2010, 18:45:10

Have you tried the silent test, John.? I can't remember what you dial

Just checked Dial 17070

Rik · Oct 13, 2010, 18:49:05

And select option 2.

JohnH · Oct 13, 2010, 18:53:13

Quote from: Lona on Oct 13, 2010, 18:45:10
Have you tried the silent test, John.? I can't remember what you dial

Just checked Dial 17070

Lona, I have done it many times over the last few days, on both lines. There is a constant audible hum (which James could hear) and it is interspersed with crackles. Sometimes, it is difficult to understand what people are saying.

Rik · Oct 13, 2010, 18:54:32

I have that trouble all the time.

JohnH · Oct 13, 2010, 19:06:09

Lona · Oct 13, 2010, 19:34:12

I had that Bt engineer came out and I didn't get charged. You can also go onto BT website and have a phone check online.

JohnH · Oct 13, 2010, 20:04:06

It won't let you check on the BT site, unless you are one of their customers. My line is with IDNet. I get this:

Sorry, we are unable to perform a line test or accept fault reports online for this type of line.

Lona · Oct 13, 2010, 20:08:49

Quote from: JohnH on Oct 13, 2010, 20:04:06
It won't let you check on the BT site, unless you are one of their customers. My line is with IDNet. I get this:

Sorry, we are unable to perform a line test or accept fault reports online for this type of line.

Too bad. That puts the ball back on Idnet's court.

kinmel · Oct 13, 2010, 20:13:23

Quote from: JohnH on Oct 13, 2010, 13:30:26
I've been waiting since Friday for BT to fix my noisy line which is causing line drops and loss of sync. Called support several times and they say to give it until Friday which seems a bit long.

I was told the same thing by support last week, even though I told them that 2 neighbours with other ISPs were having exactly the same problem.

Idnet support then "tweaked" my line and then I had to wait 96 hours to see if it settled even though they knew more than just my line was affected. All 3 lines improved on Friday and so I asked Support to hold off until Monday to see if the improvement continued. It did not and so at 9am Monday I emailed Support and asked them to get BT to check the line, my email was not dealt with until Tuesday lunchtime and the fault is still on the phone lines now.

I have learnt that emails to Support on a Monday do not get dealt with straight away, so I will telephone if I ever need to deal with Support again.

Simon · Oct 13, 2010, 23:35:46

Support are two down this week, which does impact on a small team. That's not making excuses, but it's a reason why they may take longer than usual to deal with queries.

Lona · Oct 14, 2010, 01:29:33

Just as well I stayed with BT for my phoneline. Better the devil as they say.

Gary · Oct 14, 2010, 01:37:05

Quote from: Lona on Oct 14, 2010, 01:29:33
Just as well I stayed with BT for my phoneline. Better the devil as they say.

After spending a week once with BT trying to understand my phone issue and failing every day to sort it, I am so glad I made the move away, no long contracts, cheap calls abroad and cheaper calls in the UK for me, and at least the person at CS is someone I understand.

zappaDPJ · Oct 14, 2010, 05:42:44

Just to update you on what happened, I lost sync on both ADSL and FTTC at the same time. As it happened both appear to have come back quite quickly, probably within 30 minutes. Unfortunately I wasn't aware of that as I had already got a friend out of bed and was headed in his direction to use his Internet. As both lines went down together it was probably exchange work that took me out.

As far as I know I haven't had a problem since but I'm currently having to use my friend's house as an office to finish a job so I can't be sure. What I do know is there's something wrong. The only way we can use either connection is by entering the DNS servers into the TCP/IP settings on any device that we want to connect with. If this can't be done we get diverted to the BT Wholesale URL and mobile phones won't connect via wireless at all.

When I've finished this job I'll look at my options. I have to have a reliable connection or I simply can't pay the bills. I'm not looking to blame anyone but for what I'm paying a month, £65-70 I think, I feel I ought to have far less downtime.

zappaDPJ · Oct 14, 2010, 06:19:38

Now you would think I'd be happy with these results and of course I am. The only problem is it shows what I can get but in reality my average speed on FTTC is exactly 8.38 Mb/s according to an aggregate of speed test results taken since I was connected. Rather amusingly my upload speed for the same period averages exactly 8.39 Mb/s

Download speedachieved during the test was - 35501 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 8000-38717 Kbps .
Additional Information:
IP Profile for your line is -38717 Kbps

2. Upstream Test: -provides background information.

   Upload Speed
   8198 Kbps

0 Kbps   10000 Kbps
Max Achievable Speed

>Upload speed achieved during the test was - 8198 Kbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 10000 Kbps

Rik · Oct 14, 2010, 10:21:44

Hi Zap

Since I was calling support anyway, I mentioned your issues. They have your line as being rock solid till Monday, then turning flaky. It looks to them like BT are doing work at the exchange - there's quite a rush on at the moment.

Steve · Oct 14, 2010, 10:33:40

Looking at the way BT arranges it's work schedule,you cannot rely on having a connection between midnight and 0600 which is obviously very frustrating for those people who have to work during this time.

Rik · Oct 14, 2010, 10:42:53

It is, Steve, and this pattern of work will be going on for months to come.

Simon · Oct 14, 2010, 10:53:18

It could be worse - they could just work 9-5.

Rik · Oct 14, 2010, 10:56:51

They wouldn't dare. Would they?

cavillas · Oct 14, 2010, 13:46:43

Quote from: Rik on Oct 14, 2010, 10:56:51
They wouldn't dare. Would they?

What Work?

By the way any ~~Excuse~~ explanation for BT over the total loss of Idnet services yet? Or are they trying to fabricate an excuse?

Rik · Oct 14, 2010, 15:42:07

The latter last time I heard, Alf.

zappaDPJ · Oct 14, 2010, 16:25:49

Quote from: Rik on Oct 14, 2010, 10:21:44
Hi Zap

Since I was calling support anyway, I mentioned your issues. They have your line as being rock solid till Monday, then turning flaky. It looks to them like BT are doing work at the exchange - there's quite a rush on at the moment.

Thanks Rik, it does seem to be exchange work given the timing of the outages. I've done a bit of research today regarding the DNS issues I've been having and that one still remains a complete mystery

It looks like switching one of the lines to an LLU service is going to be my best option so I'm looking at that possibility just now.

Rik · Oct 14, 2010, 16:28:01

Presumably the ADSL, Zap?

zappaDPJ · Oct 14, 2010, 17:00:05

That would be the obvious choice but I'm not sure. Outages aside that line has always been extremely stable and consistent. To put it in perspective, accumulated figures from speed testing put that line at only 0.6 MB/s lower on the down stream than my FTTC. On the other hand I would really miss the low ping and upload speeds. What I really need is to have one line that doesn't touch the local BT infrastructure. Virgin Media cable might be a possibility early in the new year.

Rik · Oct 14, 2010, 17:11:15

That would be the way I'd go in your situation.

zappaDPJ · Oct 15, 2010, 10:21:13

Quote from: zappaDPJ on Oct 14, 2010, 05:42:44
When I've finished this job I'll look at my options. I have to have a reliable connection or I simply can't pay the bills. I'm not looking to blame anyone but for what I'm paying a month, £65-70 I think, I feel I ought to have far less downtime.

To set the record straight...

QuoteIn a recent post I suggested that I was paying £65 - £70 for my connections. It's been brought to my attention that this is not the case. There was a confusion, mostly on my part over the billing on the two lines. I therefore apologise to IDNet who have in fact gone above and beyond the call of duty in order to resolve a technical issue with my original line.

http://www.idnetters.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=22569.0