UPC broadband offline in Cork – Sunday’s Well since 11:15

Impetus

I phoned UPC support and was told that it was due to a power outage and that multiple subscribers are affected. If there is a power failure the eircom phone lines do not go down. It is called backup power and 99.9999% availability.

Back-street operators like UPC obviously have no regard for normal international telecommunications standards – like using backup power and 99.9999% uptime etc. (They have an estimated repair time of 16:30 for this job).

I checked https://www.esb.ie/esb-networks/powercheck/ and there are no reported power outages in Cork city at this time. Makes me think UPC is lying about the cause of the outage. Comreg is not doing its job properly by requiring UPC to either provide 99.9999% uptime and use backup power or put warning notices on their packaging (a la cigarette companies) regarding this risk.

One is stuck with near dial-up broadband speeds at this location, even from eircom vdsl2+, which gives UPC an unhealthy monopoly. High time the state gutted the Malone’s UPC monopoly and accelerated installation of a fiber optic delivery platform, which should be open to all carriers.

9726_9726

Hi Impetus

While it is hugely inconvenient for you to be offline and you have my sympathies, a couple of things strike me:

A power outage could be a power fault such as a faulty MCB in a street cab, a blown power supply/rectifier, etc. and in that case it would not be an ESB fault and therefore not on Powercheck. Obviously the use of backup batteries is good but they may have those and have a blown component in a cab.

Nobody offers six 9s (99.9999%) on even wholesale ethernet or internet circuits, never mind on a residential service. Eircom NGN Ethernet is three 9s (99.9%) as standard and that will cost you upwards of a grand a month. Enet offer five 9s (99.999%) on diverse circuits only. And Comreg have no mandate to tell ISPs to offer an SLA of any type to residential or any other customers.

Let us know the outcome, if they reach the target repair time. At least it's a nice day outside!

Impetus

9726_9726 wrote: »

Hi Impetus

While it is hugely inconvenient for you to be offline and you have my sympathies, a couple of things strike me:

A power outage could be a power fault such as a faulty MCB in a street cab, a blown power supply/rectifier, etc. and in that case it would not be an ESB fault and therefore not on Powercheck. Obviously the use of backup batteries is good but they may have those and have a blown component in a cab.

Nobody offers six 9s (99.9999%) on even wholesale ethernet or internet circuits, never mind on a residential service. Eircom NGN Ethernet is three 9s (99.9%) as standard and that will cost you upwards of a grand a month. Enet offer five 9s (99.999%) on diverse circuits only. And Comreg have no mandate to tell ISPs to offer an SLA of any type to residential or any other customers.

Let us know the outcome, if they reach the target repair time. At least it's a nice day outside!

1) They (UPC) said that service would be restored by 16:30. The service is still down.

2) I am not inconvenienced in any way - I am on the continent, served by reliable fiber optics.

3) The outage appears to be affecting all of Cork city since 11h15 this morning. They have an RVA on their call centre system now, advising of the outage - which they only discovered an hour after the event, and is city-wide.

4) It seems to me that UPC has a single point of failure on their network which can affect the entire city of Cork. This is yet another no-no in telecommunications - diverse routing and switching etc.

5) This is not the first time that the entire city of Cork has been off UPC.

Impetus

Cork City has had city-wide UPC broadband (and related services – phone, “TV” ) on three occasions over the past few years.

11 September 2013

14 October 2013

And now today
16 April 2015

This is not a customer SLA issue. This is gross incompetence / probably a network systematic defect / issue on the part of UPC that allows an urban area of about 250’000 people are left without broadband, TV and phone.

By a supplier who has a state endorsed monopoly.

It goes to the root of the license issued by Comreg/gov.ie to UPC. This company appears incapable of providing a reliable service to its customers.
If Cork was left without a conventional phone service on an urban-wide basis, repeated over and over, I suspect the issue would be treated with less incompetence and greater seriousness by Comreg/gov.ie. Why is Malone & Co (UPC) allowed by the powers to be to deliver such an unreliable infrastructure to consumers and business users?

N64

The network going down at least once a year is far from gross incompetence :rolleyes:

Impetus

Going back in time NTL, an over-borrowed US corporation - some might think fraudulently over-indebted corporation bought Chorus, and subsequently it (NTL) went into chapter II bankruptcy.

Instead of intelligently converting the fat pipe franchise into a shared competing internet/tv/phone/mobile service providers using a single fiber infrastructure, the state - with no consultation or public competition for options, gave the left-overs of the NTL fraud to Liberty Media allowing them to create a national fat pipe monopoly. Why? Who benefited financially? Which politicians or members of the permanent government? Or were they just juiced up dumb?

Anyway UPC is unfit for purpose. And something needs to be done about the mess.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/919957/000095017202001975/s427349.txt

ED E

The OP has it out for Irish ISPs. He's not interested in an answer, he just wants a soapbox to rant on. See post history to confirm.


Just in case anyone interested though, if its taken down the entire city its either a backbone break (thanks Mr JCB) or a BAS(AAA) node has failed. Its not always possible to failover from the former and no ISP that I know of can failover from the latter, it just takes a whole network segment down until fixed.

Tazzle

Cork City, Western Road UPC here. No downtime this year at all for me.

Impetus

ED E wrote: »

The OP has it out for Irish ISPs. He's not interested in an answer, he just wants a soapbox to rant on. See post history to confirm.

Quite the contrary. However in this forum I am almost alone in wanting them to work efficiently. Makes me suspicious that many of the posters "work in / for the industry" rather than being solely consumers.

ED E wrote: »

Just in case anyone interested though, if its taken down the entire city its either a backbone break (thanks Mr JCB) or a BAS(AAA) node has failed. Its not always possible to failover from the former and no ISP that I know of can failover from the latter, it just takes a whole network segment down until fixed.

Backbones should be duplicated over diverse routes. The cable industry in general in the Anglo Saxon world couldn't give two hoots about quality of service, as one expects from an element of basic infrastructure.

The reason why product/service quality in Ireland is so poor - is that the typical Irish consumer shares the same half-baked attitude to performance that the producer has. Countries with picky consumers - eg Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and similar generally have far better product quality in goods and services produced in the country. Not to mention government services.

Take the example of food. Americans will typically eat any old junk -i.e. food for energy, period. Hence all the burger and fast Mex food joints serving huge quantities of food on a plate. Obesity, healthcare costs through the roof etc.

Compare and contrast with Italy where the food is excellent - because the people expect same. In Italian motorway service areas there is required by law to be a book on display showing the ingredients of every food item available in the cafe/restaurant, for example.

Impetus

Tazzle wrote: »

Cork City, Western Road UPC here. No downtime this year at all for me.

You posted this item late (almost midnight CET). Can you confirm that you were using the system during the day - ie between 11h15 and say 19h00 IST? Because UPC told me that it was out city wide.