Over 4 hour outage
 

Today we had an outage of over 4 hours and NTL was only reporting a possible outage or partial difficulties with service in an Oldham postcode.

Yet on the M43 postcode we had total loss for over 4 hours and NTL haven't even posted the problem on the status page.


How many other areas was affected with this outage.

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

I think there might be something like that in the Norfolk - Great Yarmouth area. Everything's just gone off a while ago.

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

Yes but they hit the status page we have nothing logged yet no internet for over 4 hours and trust me two teenagers with no internet on a sat is bad news.

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

Has been fine here in South Manchester (fallowfield) but a friend of mine in London phoned me at 9am this morning saying his connection had been down for at least 2 hours. Must be a random thing?

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

Norwich is back up ;)

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

Not every outage is reported on the server status page- iirc it is only ones that affect more than 10000 customers, although i can't remember the exact figure.

IMO 4 hours without internet on a lovely warm saturday isn't the end of the world.... can't the two teenagers be introduced to the outside world for a few hours?

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

Has anyone phoned Faults to report these problems?

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

I agree...

And Florence, I don't mean to be rude here, but it sounds to me that ntl's service is the least of your kids's problems.

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

I thought it was just my modem playing up this pm, look of relief on kids faces as the sync/ready lights stopped blinking.

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

Yes I reported it they only had the fault as affecting the OL1 area didn't realise it also took out the Ashton/Droylsden area and there would have been more than a thousend offline. I posted that I called after it had been down for 20mins as it normally is back before then and many times come back just as I get to the front of the queue!

---------- Post added at 22:00 ---------- Previous post was at 21:58 ----------

Well put it this way he was supposed to be in a clan match while we was down. If you are a online gamer and one who is in clans what sort of mood would you have been in.


Seems on here if I post a problem I come under fire from other members but its ok for them to post problems.

What use is the forums if we couldn't discuss it I asked who else was affected with the outage try reading all the post instead of who posts and having a go.

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

At least it's sorted now.
Calm down. We are all entitled to opinions. We are also entitled to post problems. The reason I posted the above is that a lot of times, people post on here without bothering to call NTL. Without a call, NTL may not be aware of a problem. Also, while that problem may be in the same area they are doing work, or experiencing other problems, they may NOT be related.

I am sure that Punky didn't mean any offence. I certainly don't think he was having a go. I was not having a go either.

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

Hi m8,

What hours was your outage between? I'm in Droylsden M43 and didn't have any connection issues yesterday.

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

The outage started 10.36 ( exact time given by tech support) and I noticed it was back on at 2.45.

My computer showed me being disconnected from the ISPr chatroom at 10.33

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

Actually, I am a clanner with NTHW. But Christ, there's more important things in life than a clan match.

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

Hrm I had an outage of more than 16 hours last night / this morning on my DSL.

Not that I really care, forced me to do some studying rather than playing World of Warcraft ;) Outages are a sad fact of life and even with this outage my DSL's uptime is better than 99.5% - I can't really complain about that.

You appear set on it being the entire Ashton / Droylsden area that was affected, you said this before asking if anyone else saw outage, and bashed ntl over failing to report this. The only person from M43 to report anything reports that they saw no outage suggesting that your outage wasn't as large in scope as you thought.

You didn't mention if your modem lost sync or if your connection remained synched but no websites were reachable. I can guarantee you that if you lost sync that fault would not have affected 10k people as no Ashton uBR has 10,000 customers on it and chances are you either had uBR problems or local HFC network problems. You wouldn't share a uBR or any part of the HFC network with 10,000 people.

Although everything after the uBR is resilient, 2 connections from uBR going to 2 different switches taking 2 different fibre routes to 2 different routers in Oldham I guess there may have been issues with both core routers in Oldham, aircon probably ;)

If both routers in Oldham failed this would have affected well over 10,000 people and yes the process shuld report all affected areas. Saying that though chances are it would have been put down as an 'Oldham area' fault as to give each individual postcode affected by a core router failure would be a horrendous task and would take hours to compile, by which time the fault would be done with.

ntl do still have a service status number if I remember rightly.

This all withstanding I would expect to see a few outages due to the heat making the kit in the ground get a little too warm - this stuff was designed to be stuck on top of poles not in cabinets baking.

My own ISP is just one of a number affected by aircon failures as well.

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

Well there is something still wrong since the outage. I have failed to get anywhere near 2mb. So looks like a third call to tech support if it continues to cost me to get the speed issues sorted I will request the cost refunded as since my last call and the speed problem being sorted I have had acceptable speed for 2mb.


Sun, 18 Jun 2006 14:53:53 GMT

1st 512K took 5531 ms = 92.6 KB/sec, approx 763 Kbps, 0.75 Mbps
2nd 512K took 4906 ms = 104.4 KB/sec, approx 860 Kbps, 0.84 Mbps
3rd 512K took 3734 ms = 137.1 KB/sec, approx 1130 Kbps, 1.1 Mbps
4th 512K took 5688 ms = 90 KB/sec, approx 742 Kbps, 0.72 Mbps

Overall Average Speed = approx 874 Kbps, 0.85 Mbps


The modem lost sync the only steady light on the modem was the power, sync was flashing all the time. Tech support checked the modem and agreed the outage had affected me also and was letting NTL know.

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

A fault in Oldham won't cause a modem connected to Ashton uBR to lose sync so tech support were wrong. You can only lose sync to your uBR and your connection to it will not go to Oldham before it goes to Ashton hubsite. The only thing in Oldham that could possible cause issues would be DHCP problems however it's quite unlikely that your modem is going to lose its' DHCP lease at the same time as there are issues in Oldham, so you probably got blagged.

I've said this before but.... why are you still with this company when you are every 2 - 3 weeks posting complaining about the service you receive? Isn't it getting just a little tiresome posting here complaining?

I dread reading your threads as you are without a doubt the biggest repeat complainer about your broadband service but you still have it and still even defend the company providing you this dodgy service. Why?

If I had anywhere near that level of trouble from my ISP I'd show them the door. I expect and demand at least a reasonable level of service.

Is it really that hard to cancel? You probably have a BT phoneline or could easily enough and don't take their TV. You could easily port the ntl number to BT and take DSL.

Still if you want to keep paying them £25 a month while complaining about the people who have cut deals to pay less, and enjoy an unreliable and unstable service for the privilege I guess that's your prerogative.

I'm not interested by the way in hearing about how bad DSL is by the way, I'm sure for some people it's poor and you see all sorts of horror stories on ISPR but you should be in with a fairly good chance of getting DSL that outperforms your cable. I've never had major issues with DSL, and I'd imagine out of the over 8 million on DSL most of them haven't either.

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

I can only post what I was told, when I ask here first without calling them I get complained at by you and others for asking without contacting them, when I contact them then try to find if others had the same you again complain. I seem to be damned if I do and damned if I don't in your eyes.

One main reason the phone is not in my name and they do not wish to ave to change teh telephone number just to move.

Nobody forces you to read them if you dread it then don't bother!!

The phone line is not in my name and they do not want to have to change the phone number if we move to BT as simple as that.

:erm: :shrug:

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

I take it your stressed?

:D

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

You can number port your number. That is what i did and it took no time at all. So you do NOT lose your number.

I will be moving to Be Unlimited as soon as there Dslam is up and running in Warrington. NTL cannot provide a service that is consistent and certainly STILL have not fixed my billing after 4 months. As for speed that's a complete joke where i live, but i only have 2 months left to put up with them. In the mean time they can continue to refund my payments every month as per there promise that if i have a billing fault i get my service for free :).

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

I have had enough rows over trying to move the phone from NTL he will not listen to any suggestions that include moving the phone.

Its in his name so I am stuck.

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

I'm manchester and ive no probs :)






OOPS i'm BT now :D

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

Git

I love my ntl 10mb family pack tv and the phone.

All working perfectly fine yip no problems at all, not a single issue.


/smug ******* mode off

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

Perhaps someone could explain the logs on the modem as some I have never had before then it might be easier to spot the problem when it loses sync next time.

All since Sat when the internet was down from around 10.33am

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

Nothing to say really, it's checking for a DOCSIS downstream it can lock on to, finding one then transmitting a request to el uBR and not receiving a ranging response back to help it fine tune upstream transmit power. All this does is point to an issue on the upstream path. The uBR doesn't respond with a ranging response as it didn't see the ranging request.

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

What he said. :tu:


I will be in the office for your area tomorrow and will ask the engineers for your area if they are seeing any complaints over and above what they normally get on a day to day basis. If they are seeing a lot will get them to have a look for you.

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

Thank you it would seem on Sat everything went downhill after this.

So I woud say someone requested the modem to respond with some info and it went down hill fast afterwards. There is no way to find out what the other info was after the But no Un... what was requested

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

Unicast might be what would have been next. I do not think anyone would have requested or would have been talking to your modem. All the information in the logs is created by normal everyday traffic to and from the various parts of NTL's network and equipment.

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

No-one requested that the modem do anything, this is an automatic process during modem sync.

http://www.ct-magazine.com/archives/...gistration.htm

For more information on the DOCSIS modem registration process.

Also to finish off the other bit .....Unicast Maintenance opportunities received. Modem broadcast but did not receive a response back from the uBR providing a timeslot for it to transmit a unicast message.

Again to understand this bit better you need to look at time division multiplexing. I'm not convinced you've the uber techy skillz to really read and absorb all that gack so it'll all look like a foreign language. Can't really say I blame you it's all Greek to me.

I'd still say upstream fault is the most likely, simply because a downstream HFC fault would have harmed people's TV, and the errors suggest an upstream issue.

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

Thanks I will read up a little more.

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

florence is it not possible to get a 2nd line in your own name and live with the extra cost?

now days on adsl you have to be very far to not be able to get 2mbit, my line is long and I have a predicted 5.5mbit and bt are known to be conservative. Bt have also stated that adsl max performance expect on par with 2mbit so that again should outperform your cable and if it gets below 400kbit BT will class it as a fault.

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

No wrong year to take extra expenses I have already stretch the budget with a course and I have to try to help my Daughter through University she starts in September so I am more looking to reduce costs rather than increase them

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

Asked the engineers for your area today.

There answer was that there was no outages and that they had not been sent out to any customers on your nodal area over the weekend and start of the week. They also say they have not had any increase in fault reports and that there is no abnormal fault reports from you nodal area. They suggest you report the fault and insist on a engineer visit, It could be a local fault.

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

So much for India then I was on to them while it was down and they was supposed to be escolating it with NTL it came back on around the right time for the Oldham outage.

It was definately the NTL network down as the modem had no sync but had power.

I phone now while its working and they will do nothing because its working.

Don't suppose if I called CS they would confrim that India had informed UK about the problem or was it all just lip-service to get the customer offline.

He gave me a fault ref number

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

Cardiff, Newport and Treforest off this morning due to a fault... 3 hours... sob sob....

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

if the modem loses sync it doesnt mean the network is down, it could be the modem dying, or a cut cable between you and the hub.

Re: Over 4 hour outage
 

If what Unlimited posted above is correct rule out the cut cable as the engineers did nothing in my area. The modem is still working but I am monitoring it.

Mind everytime a modem here has lost sync India has blamed the modem and everytime the modem was fine and it was the network. :shrug: