Topic: Connections

[Michelle]

Hi guys, I wonder if you can give me a bit of help here please.

Last night I couldn't get on line at all, well I was online alright but I couldn't do a thing nothing would open, it was too slow, couldn't even get email  through incredimail.  I assume it was the bytes sent and received they just wouldn't go up enough.  It was up to about 4000 sent and 2000 received. Now its on 200000 and 1110000 bit of a difference.  I disconnect and reconnected still no change, I even shut everything else down... now why would it do that? Anyone know?

[Simon]

There was a failure of a major backbone link between the UK and USA which caused difficulties for Internet traffic across many ISPs yesterday, Michelle.  Pipex was affected.  I couldn't send e-mails for a short while.  Maybe that was the problem.  Hopefully it is better for you today.  

[Michelle]

Its fine today (touchwood) thanks Simon.  

Hopefully thats what it was then, Ntl Have a problem with connections if someone sneezes.  >

[Rodders]

I was in the same boat yesterday, Shell.  You might at least have given me a wave.  

[TR]

 
A damaged undersea transatlantic cable is being blamed for causing havoc for Net and phone users in the UK last night.

A number of ISPs are understood to have been hit by the problem, which surfaced (the problem, not the cable) yesterday afternoon at around 4pm.

The cable - which is owned by a consortium of telcos - is believed to have hit a snag (figuratively speaking, of course) somewhere off the French coast. France Telecom, which is responsible for that section of cable, is sending a boat out to examine the damage.

At this stage it's not known exactly what the damage is or what caused it. However, the effects of the incident were felt in the UK last night.

BT has confirmed that some of its voice services were hit by the outage, while NTL blamed the cable problem for downing its Net service - including web browsing, email, ftp and newsgroups - for around eight hours.

The service was back up and running by around 1am today, although the cableco has conceded that some punters may still be suffering problems this morning.

Telewest confirmed that its customers also experienced difficulties accessing email and personal webspace for around four hours. Although it's still investigating the matter, a spokesman acknowledged that the problems could be a result of the damaged cable.

And Tiscali said it was unaffected by the incident, although some of its punters may have found accessing US-based sites slower than usual. ®

Wasnt me

[Michelle]

There you go then, thanks hookie.


You know I'd have waved had I have seen you rodders  

[Adept]

It appears to have been an NTL-wide problem then. Several colleagues at work was having problems with their NTL connection too

[Lona]

Could that me why I couldn't access my BT bill online.  I got into BT's site but couldn't actually read bill.

[Simon]

It did cause lots of problems, Lona.

[Rodders]

Make sure you're sitting down and then take a deep breath before reading this Lona!  

[Adept]

Hmmm...

"Customers got a full refund"

I wonder exactly how much money was involved in this "error"? It seems to me that if, hypothetically, a company had a minor cash-flow problem, they could manufacture a small error of this natute to get them over the hump and pay it all back the next day. One day one of these companies is going to make an "error" like this and go bust before they can correct it  >