Rant: Outage in Reading 06 June 2004

[KbdNoOni]

Both broadband and TV were out (for me and next door) in Reading from approximately 16:30 to 21:00 on Sunday 06 June.
I had to dig an old set-top antenna so I could laugh at Clarkson...

The thing that really ****ed me off was that there was no way of knowing if NTL knew they had a problem, no way of finding out how long it would be to fix it (if they knew) and most of all no one to shout out about it!

NTL provide a 24 hour service.
Not providing 24 hour support is going to drive me away much faster than outages and other crap.

[MetaWraith]

I know the recent outages in the Reading area over the last 4 days were a pain in the ****, but NTL do provide a 24/7 server status line 0800 0524315 (yeah i know the Reading outages never made it to that)

They also provide a 24/7 fault reporting line 0800 052 2000, however if there is a widespread service problem there may be an automated message indicating that NTL do know there is a problem in your area that is effecting your service.

Best of all is the Tech Support line 0845 650 0121, at least there you can get list of Postcodes for regions affected, and also talk to a flesh and blood person rather than a machine. Here the RG1, RG2, RG6 areas were listed at various times over the Thurs-Sun period.

Yes I know the wait in the queueing system can seem interminable, but hey we only rant when things have gone wrong, we almost never seem to praise NTL when things go right and just work.

Dont give up hope yet. As the network gets bigger there is most likely always going to be a fault somewhere (It's always raining somewhere in the world right ?) However the majority of the time it wont affect you.

Be thankful that competition means they will eventually get around to fixing the faults. Anyway during those outages I managed to get my lawns mowed, creosote the fences and trim the hedges :¬)

[Neil]

Originally Posted by KbdNoOni

Both broadband and TV were out (for me and next door) in Reading from approximately 16:30 to 21:00 on Sunday 06 June.
I had to dig an old set-top antenna so I could laugh at Clarkson...

The thing that really ****ed me off was that there was no way of knowing if NTL knew they had a problem, no way of finding out how long it would be to fix it (if they knew) and most of all no one to shout out about it!

NTL provide a 24 hour service.
Not providing 24 hour support is going to drive me away much faster than outages and other crap.

Did you even try to contact ntl?

[secular]

Originally Posted by KbdNoOni

Both broadband and TV were out (for me and next door) in Reading from approximately 16:30 to 21:00 on Sunday 06 June.
I had to dig an old set-top antenna so I could laugh at Clarkson...

The thing that really ****ed me off was that there was no way of knowing if NTL knew they had a problem, no way of finding out how long it would be to fix it (if they knew) and most of all no one to shout out about it!

NTL provide a 24 hour service.
Not providing 24 hour support is going to drive me away much faster than outages and other crap.

I live in RG1 so I know the outage was a pain.

Although it's fairly easy to tell whether or not NTL know they have a problem. On the modem the sync and rdy lights are not lit - this lets you know it's NTL's side thats messed up. From around 2am (I work weird shifts) the modem will have starting rebooting repeatedly as mine did (lots of flashy lights). At this point you know NTL are on to it. I left it till 7am and bonanza it came back on.

As MetaWraith states go paint a fence, defrag that crusty HD, sort out those missing dll's, ecetera.

Also your desire to yell at call centre employees is concerning. Not wishing to get too personal but if your form of catharsis is to rollock someone earning not much more than min. wage who has NO CONTROL over the networks performance, then I have a friend in a white coat standing by.

[MetaWraith]

Originally Posted by secular

Also your desire to yell at call centre employees is concerning. Not wishing to get too personal but if your form of catharsis is to rollock someone earning not much more than min. wage who has NO CONTROL over the networks performance, then I have a friend in a white coat standing by.

ROTFLMAO

[MetaWraith]

Grrrrrrr how ironic can things get
Here in RG6 my connection is acting like its powered by a yoyo, and the TS phoneline,once you get past the "press 1 for" section says "there is a temporary fault, please try again later"

[Chris W]

Originally Posted by secular

Also your desire to yell at call centre employees is concerning. Not wishing to get too personal but if your form of catharsis is to rollock someone earning not much more than min. wage who has NO CONTROL over the networks performance, then I have a friend in a white coat standing by.

Excuse me! i earn much more than the minimum wage! More than twice the minimum wage for my age group actually

we don't have a man in a white coat, but we do have a woman who gives us back and head massages

[Stop It]

But isnt the min wage in wales something like 4 groats a day?

[secular]

Sorry monkey breath - talking from my own experience working for yellow pages.

[MetaWraith]

Grrrrrrr after 3days of constant connection and thinking yea the outages are fixed, it's now reverted back to yoyo mode again, and guess what the T/S line answering machine says "due to circumstances beyond our control we cannot answer your call".

I think NTL need a strong injection of P.P.P.P.P

Prior
Planning
Prevents
Pass (change the a for an i)
Poor
Performance

[Chris W]

Originally Posted by MetaWraith

Grrrrrrr after 3days of constant connection and thinking yea the outages are fixed, it's now reverted back to yoyo mode again, and guess what the T/S line answering machine says "due to circumstances beyond our control we cannot answer your call".

I think NTL need a strong injection of P.P.P.P.P

Prior
Planning
Prevents
Pass (change the a for an i)
Poor
Performance

The fire alarm was going off!!! I don't know about any one else, but i wasn't going to sit here and get my ass burned!

[MetaWraith]

Originally Posted by monkeybreath

The fire alarm was going off!!! I don't know about any one else, but i wasn't going to sit here and get my ass burned!

okay, you're forgiven :¬) but the yoyo mode of today is down right annoying, as is the fact that TV went out a short while ago (back now though).

Considering that it's now over a week since the outages in Reading started occuring, i think it's pretty poor that they are still very much in evidence. I'm so caught up with my household chores i have now got plenty of time for relaxing, surfing, and posting and feel somewhat peeved that i'm denied that by whatever shoddy maintainance or planning is behind the outages.

[buglawton]

Was that an isolated outage?

For the past 3-4 weeks (June 2004) both Web and Mail access drops out
for period of 5 mins to an hour or so, at any time of the day. This
has been every day in the last week or so. It does not match any
specific service annoucements NTL have been making.
I am aware how difficult it will be to get this seriously investigated
and that NTL will initially refer me to my own router/PC as the
culprit. I do not believe these are the cause (no resetting of local
eqpt needs to be done - the service just returns when it feels like
it). I suspect that NTL's servers are overloaded or going thru
maintenance or other problems but proof would be nice.

I am in the IP range 80.6.206.xxx and am on the East side of Reading.

Anyone else been experiencing the same?

[MetaWraith]

81.110.xxx.xxx

and yep exactly the same here
sometimes goes off for hours
other times for just a few minutes at a time and connects for a few minutes only to repeat the cycle (yoyo mode).

I've called T/S every day since 3rd June, and to no surprise I get a different story/excuse every time.

This has gotten me mad enough to have written down a new number to call on Monday, that of cancellations. It's time that I stopped donating to a lost cause,and got my broadband, TV, and 2 phone lines elsewhere.

[MetaWraith]

Well the engineer callout that T/S (name and extension withheld to protect the guilty) supposedly booked never turned up, no call from Coventry, nothing. No surprise there I guess.

4 disconnections in the last 90 minutes.

Well I for one am in the process of switching providers.
BT turned up and reconnected by old BT line.
Sky on order.
Reviewing options on different providers :¬)

When T/S give you the run around, and different excuses each day, it's hard to see how NTL can survive long. It's like the fall of the Roman Empire.

Anybody got any statistics on people leaving ?