Luton Telephone Problems..
 

Hi, I have just returned home to find out there are telephone probelms with NTL in the Luton area? I am unable to call NTL to ask, but after calling friends on there mobiles, hear they are having the same problems, does anybody know whats happening..

Re: Telephone Problems..
 

i was in a pub earlier, and there was a couple of coppers there, they have no phone lines to the station !!

they was told a powersupply has failed. !! no backups ? suppose NTL sold them to pay for their staff's wages ?

Seems to be spread across bedfordshire

Re: Telephone Problems..
 

The Luton Switch had planned maintenance work carried out over night last night, due to a problem which arose during the works the lines have been down since 2.30am they were off all day and we were being told within an hour they would be back up, we could call out as long as it was beyond the luton switch which affects lots of herts and beds as well.

Please accept our appologies for this fault and rest assured that our engineers are working on a resolution as we speak.

Hopefully the fault will be rectified by tomorrow morning if not then its another very stressful and busy day for us at NTL tomorrow and for our customers! :(

Im sorry that is all I know at the moment when if worst comes to worst and they arent back on by tomorrow i will try and find out more when i get into work and post here :( thanks for your patience.

**EDIT** Its a fault with the switch not the power supplys we have even got Marconi engineers working on this as well, although yes it would appear the Luton police do indeed use NTL as a line provider.

Re: Telephone Problems..
 

Would this affect ex ntl phone lines?

Only asking as i've not been able to dial into my house all day - I live in sandy in bedfordshire....

I can dial out ok.

BT are supposed to be looking into it.

Re: Telephone Problems..
 

It shouldnt do to be honest dilligaf because if you ported your number it now doesnt exist on ntl's switch it will be on BT's switch, what happens when you try dialling into it?

Re: Telephone Problems..
 

Down here to :(

Nice one ntl :rolleyes:

Re: Telephone Problems..
 

'You are dialing an incorrect number'

Re: Telephone Problems..
 

If it was the same problem you would have got an NU Tone (dead tone) or nothing at all to be honest but I couldnt rule it out completely from here!

Id chase BT up on it personally it sounds like your number has dropped off of there switch, try dialling your mobile from your landline and see what number is displayed, id hazard a guess that it isnt the number ntl ported.

Re: Telephone Problems..
 

Its not NTL's fault entirely, equipment has failed, and no doubt people will call through and scream at us guys on the end of the phone when the lines become live again, but it isnt our fault either :(

I know the majority of the people in my office are affected by it as well as the majority of them live in Luton.

Re: Telephone Problems..
 

BT have just called me to say that they will be sorting it shortly.

When I dial out it comes up with the correct number.

Thanks for the help people :)
(and those who helped via pm too ;) )

Re: Telephone Problems..
 

We had loads of misrouted calls today from poor Luton folk trying to find out what was happening

Re: Telephone Problems..
 

Dilligaf did they say what was wrong?

Re: Telephone Problems..
 

Nope the missus didn't ask and they didn't offer any information :( If they call again (they are supposed to tell us when it's fixed) I'll post what they said here. If they tell us that is :)

Re: Luton Telephone Problems..
 

If they have Marconi engineers working on it as well as their own (and it's been down all day) then it must be a pretty major failure.

I have added Luton to the tread title to make it easier for affected people to see it.

Re: Luton Telephone Problems..
 

With regards to the BT line situation...

When a number is ported, it still remains on the ntl switch and is basically diverted to the BT Switch which then processes the request and forwards it to the correct circuits.

All number porting really is, is an advanced form of call divert.

Some of the customer service calls from customers serviced by the Luton Call Centre were diverted to Glasgow today - around 1,200 calls - and some were diverted elsewhere I believe.

Fingers crossed ntl get the switch up and running as soon as possible for the benefit of all customers affected.

Re: Luton Telephone Problems..
 

Are you sure timmy? as far as I know when a port is accepted the number is deleted from our switch and added to BT's and it couldnt really be call forwarding as it would need to be on the BT switch for the equipment ID etc wouldnt it?

Re: Luton Telephone Problems..
 

Have to say, and prob gonna get flamed or my first red rep for this BUT!!! if you expect to run a whole region's phone lines on a single switch with no redundency then????? well ntl, you deserve all you get!

there are very few excuses for dropping that many customers!

I hope those affected are sorted asap.

Re: Luton Telephone Problems..
 

That's true in that the number is added to BT's switch, so that facilities such as 1471 etc work properly.

However, because the number is still owned by the "donor" (in this case NTL), it's still on their network and is forwarded to the correct BT switch by use of a prefix code, and vice versa when BT is the Donor and ntl is the new telco providor.

Using an example of a "failed" number port I've seen:

A customer ported their BT number to ntl, however BT hadn't set the number on their switch to forward to the correct ntl switch.

As a result, if a BT customer called that customer then their BT Phone would ring, whereas if an NTL customer was to call the customer (using the same BT number) then their NTL line would ring...

Re: Luton Telephone Problems..
 

Ahh thats where the Transparent Switch comes into play then!!

Cheers for the info Tim.

Re: Luton Telephone Problems..
 

I wonder if you understand the term switch ? It's basically the whole telephone exchange.

No exchange is totally redundant - they are like big computers - bits are redundant but there are many ways they can just fall over (just like any computer system) - be they BT or NTL exchanges.

BT exchanges fail as well (we used to call them exchange isolations). I was involved a few such failures while I worked at BT (not the cause I might add ;)).

The system often consists of a major exchange with satellite exchanges hanging off it - and if the main exchange (switch) falls over then all the satellites are taken out as well.

Re: Luton Telephone Problems..
 

Thanks Pem, I did post a reply to tkiely but edited it and removed it, it was a long day for us in Luton and its gonna be even longer tomorrow so a ratty response from me isnt the best idea!

Re: Luton Telephone Problems..
 

...Update - BT just called me at home to ask if the service was ok and if I had any more problems.

They said it was 'an exchange fault'.

MMMmmm - I wonder if NTL would have called me to ask if it had been sorted and if everything was ok???

Re: Luton Telephone Problems..
 

p.s. thanks for the description of a switch Pem - 'cos I didn't know what it was :)

Re: Luton Telephone Problems..
 

I can only speak for my department but any faults logged that get routed to networks and that arent resolved at the customers premises have a courtesy call to find out if the networks team resolved the problem.