Planned ADSL Maintenance Work (11th July)

[Justin]

The Folowing has just been posted on the Freedom2Surf Website.

We wish to inform you that on the 11th July there will be planned maintenance on the F2S central pipes to migrate the primary BT central pipe off, to make it more resilient.

This work is planned between 06.00am & 08.30am on that day and should have minimal impact on services provided. We will provide further updates on that day if required.

[elrandom3]

I wonder what this actually means in English.. i've spent the last few minutes re-reading this, and i'm still non the wiser.

"Migrate the primary bt central pipe off" - migrate which pipe where? changing termination points?

Anyone who could degobbledegook this, or possibly throw some ideas on what this means?

Ta

[phillcahill]

Originally Posted by elrandom3

I wonder what this actually means in English.. i've spent the last few minutes re-reading this, and i'm still non the wiser.

"Migrate the primary bt central pipe off" - migrate which pipe where? changing termination points?

Anyone who could degobbledegook this, or possibly throw some ideas on what this means?

Ta

Sounds to me like sombody with technical skills and no social skills has just asked somebody with no technical skills but some social skill to write a notice regarding some kind of techi issue the very social person does not understand but still feels the urge to ramp it up a bit. Some people would call it bull poo based on truth

[aos101]

I'm not really sure what it means either. I think phillcahill's post might explain how it came to be like that though.

[gomez]

That scenario sounds so familiar. We used to send out such reports with a short snappy overview paragraph at the front which anyone with an ounce of common could understand and accept followed by a more technical detailed explanation of what was happening. It was still a constant battle to stop someone sub-editing the thing to try and make it sound more user-friendly, even if it lost clarity and accuracy in the process.

[andrew]

I hope it's not just a reprint of an instruction from the design team to the engineering team - otherwise thats the main central unplugged

[Myke]

why is this in their FAQ on their site (think tis there looked a few hours ago). It should be on the homepage (again might be there now can't be bothered looking ). It's about time they got rid of that stupid graphic of the constapated women

[aos101]

Originally Posted by Myke

why is this in their FAQ on their site (think tis there looked a few hours ago). It should be on the homepage (again might be there now can't be bothered looking ). It's about time they got rid of that stupid graphic of the constapated women

I don't think it's in their FAQ but the page it is on does say FAQ at the top presumably because the alerts feature was an afterthought and they just used the FAQ page template.

[gippledocks]

Originally Posted by Myke

It's about time they got rid of that stupid graphic of the constapated women

I'd wager the site'll be taken down before she 'goes' ;-)

Clearly keeping the F2S web presence up to date is yet another thing that's not at the top of their priority list. Check the 'Alerts' on the Tech Support page. There's one there from 9th May! Old news or what?

[aos101]

Originally Posted by gippledocks

Clearly keeping the F2S web presence up to date is yet another thing that's not at the top of their priority list. Check the 'Alerts' on the Tech Support page. There's one there from 9th May! Old news or what?

Also the outages checker has been broken for weeks and weeks, and because it's broken some people have really old outages still showing in their members area. Also the exchange capacity checker hasn't updated from BT's systems for over 2 months.

They took the time to add a callback feature on the F2S site for new sales (very similar to Nildram's one actually), but can't manage to keep the current website they inherited running properly. I think they should get the site they inherited running properly first before they start adding new features.

Anyway, I seem to be drifting off the thread topic somewhat...

[moomin]

Come on chaps, be reasonable. We've been moaning for months that F2s don't give any warning of planned "maintenance"(aka outages). Now here it is - the only problem is that it not in English.

Rather than moan I think we should try and gain whatever intelligence we can from it. In my experience pipes carry either good stuff (eg water, gas, etc) or bad stuff (you know what). Now BT are well known for their continuous production of bull****, which presumably has to travel in the main BT pipe. Therefore any attempt to divert this flow from the central F2S pipes has to be a good thing?

[aos101]

Originally Posted by moomin

Therefore any attempt to divert this flow from the central F2S pipes has to be a good thing?

Well the traffic still has to go somewhere (ie through a BT Central). The text talks about the primary BT Central pipe which presumably is a 622Mb/sec pipe and so serves a lot of customers (well more than a 155Mb/sec one probably). It's good that they are posting information about maintenance on their site, but it just doesn't quite make sense (not to me at least).

[artee2]

Seems pretty clear

We wish to inform you that on the 11th July there will be planned maintenance on the F2S central pipes to migrate the primary BT central pipe off

Translation:

Have you seen the price of BT Centrals? If we switch it off we'll save a fortune

to make it more resilient

Translation

If we don't have any traffic on it, it can't get filled up by you naughty P2P'ers and grind to a halt.

This work is planned between 06.00am & 08.30am on that day

Translation:

It's planned for then but It could be any time because we're a bit pushed at the moment.

and should have minimal impact on services provided.

Translation:

We're throttling everybody to within an inch of their lives anyway so the clogged up remaining bandwidth shouldn't be noticably different.

We will provide further updates on that day if required.

Translation:

If you call us and are willing to wait the 2 hours for an answer, we'll tell you that it's a BT hardware problem and you'll have to wait for further 24 hours for them to respond, by which time, hopefully, you will have forgotten about it.

Sorry I couldn't resist,

I'll get my coat (again )

[akita_inu]

Hello!!!!! Don't go .... !!! We've missed you !!

[xaler]

Is there any chance this work will go well and we wont all be worse off after it?

[DavidC]

I am sure that it will go as well as..................
Oh! forget it

[helen_f2s]

Sorry, just picked up on this.

I will make sure the alert is reposted in English

Sorry for any confusion caused.

Regards
Helen

[ccsnet]

Originally Posted by helen_f2s

Sorry, just picked up on this.

I will make sure the alert is reposted in English

Sorry for any confusion caused.

Regards
Helen

MMmmmmm

Translation:

Oppps - we buggered up again....

Terran

[Colster]

Still no update, maybe this will appear on 12th.

[Deckard]

Has anyone else had a mail like this from F2S?

Local Loop Unbundling

Over the next few months, freedom2surf will be changing some customer connections to be Local Loop Unbundled. This simply means that f2s will utilise improved technology within the telephone exchange to manage the broadband service from the exchange to the customer's premises. In future, f2s will be able to offer faster speeds and improved products and services.

Benefits include:

Enhanced service resiliency
Future speed capability of up to 24Mb*
Greater flexibility in the range of services f2s will be able to offer
Your service on the High Wycombe Exchange will be transferred to our LLU service between:

10 and 18 July 2006

[minority]

ye pipex have started there llu role out your are "lucky enough" to get transfered onto a llu line meaning you no longer get bb through bt which means it must be even harder to get a mac to get out of the place.

I think it is terrible that it doesnt say that you have a choice in the matter as I personally wouldnt go on it as I rather have the possibility of getting away from f2s quickly more appealing....

wil the llu mean we get more bandwidth to use..since they dont need centrals and their cost should technically go down a bit.

[aos101]

Originally Posted by Deckard

Has anyone else had a mail like this from F2S?

Local Loop Unbundling

...

Another user here got the same email:

http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/showthre...Number=2543349

Looks like Nildram users are also getting the email:

http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/showthre...Number=2547919

As far as I know Nildram don't use Easynet as a wholesale provider, so I think it must be Pipex LLU.

[helen_f2s]

Hi
I have changed the Maintenance post on the F2S website to read

Planned Maintenance Work

5th of July 2006


On Tuesday 11 July engineers will be carrying out essential maintenance to improve the resilience on the f2s Broadband network.
This work is planned between 06.00am & 08.30am and should have minimal impact on services provided.
If you experience issues in reconnecting, please switch off your router for 10 minutes and try again.
Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience this may cause.

[artee2]

Helen,

It's just my opinion, but reading through the thread, I think that the more technically minded forum members here, (quite a large percentage) were actually looking for more accurate details of what the planned maintenance involved and how it would improve resilience. Not just stripping the announcement down to the proposed date and how to reconnect

[notmeatall]

whoops there goes my BRAS profile again
think i'll just turn it off when I go to bed and take the reconnect lottery the
next day