Background
Reliable information seems difficult to get hold of but from what we know it would appear that there was a major incident causing damage to a BT network tunnel 32 metres below ground in the east of London. At around 2:30 on Saturday afternoon, what BT will only describe as ‘a third party contractor’ working on the Olympic village bored through the network tunnel severing fibre optic and copper cables. [Note that more recent reports have identified BT Openreach as the 'third party contractor'.]
Impact
The damaged main data artery immediately affected vital services such as mobile phone cell sites, remote connections to traffic light signals and emergency services. Needless to say, phone and broadband services were also affected.
I am an independant computer services technician working in Lincoln and the surrounding area. I have had dozens of clients call me complaining of their lack of broadband connectivity (their phone services have been unaffected.) Confirmed affected areas that I have had first hand information about include Saxilby, Fiskerton, Sturton-by-Stow, Ingham, Glebe Park, Nettleham and Lincoln city centre.
Some of these clients lost their broadband on Saturday afternoon. This would appear to be a direct result of the incident as you would expect. More interestingly, other users had an uninterrupted service over the weekend but have experienced outages during Monday and today (Tuesday.) This wouild imply that users accross the country are experiencing ‘planned outages’ in order to cope with capacity issues. The problem is that no one is being advised of these planned outages. Some BT reports have even denied that anyone outside of east London is affected.
Comment
Clearly such a huge incident is not going to be repaired overnight. Imagine a colapsed service tunnel 32m below ground. Construction workers will have to gain access, make safe and repair the area before any access can be granted to telecom engineers. Once the engineers get on site the repair job is still mamouth. In the mean time it would appear that the data can be re-routed. But at what expense? The capcity appears to be being borrowed from domestic users from what I can see.
If you have been affected by this issue then please leave a message detailing the extent of your outage and the ISP that you use. Most of my clients use Tiscali Broadband but what about you? What are you doing about it? Will you expect to receive compensation from your ISP?
Update (Wednesday morning)
I have just been in touch with my contacts at Tiscali to try and get some more info. The quote from their technical team is as follows:
“We identified a further issue yesterday morning (Tuesday) relating to the BT outage, there is a further two STM-4 (622Mbps) IPStream pipes down which is around 15% of our (Tiscali’s) overall IPStream capacity so this will be causing some customers to be without service across the UK. BT are working on resolving these two breaks but as there is 1186 cables to be repaired it won’t be a quick fix.”
It’s nice to be told ‘something’ but it begs more questions than it answers.
Update (Good Friday)
There are a couple of photos on Flickr now. The big orange thing is the boring machine cutting through the cable tunnel. Actually it’s a much tidier job than I’d imagined! Still, it’s had a huge impact on our broadbnad service. (Note that I have no way of telling whether these photos genuinely releate to this issue.)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23919135@N00/
Other Related Stories
The Register | BBC News
Tags: broadband, BT network Tunnel, east London, internet outage, olympic village
Yep, Tiscali here. I live in Scotland and since Saturday cannot connect until at least 11pm at night. “Planned outage” sounds about right, but until a recorded message about the tunnelling issue appeared today, Tiscali customer services wouldn’t (couldn’t?) tell me what the issue was – just that it was a problem at their end and to wait 24hrs (two days running mind).
Thanks for that Jon,
Yes, I have heard of others who only seem to have service between 11pm and 6am.
Patrick
I am on the Rhyl exchange, North Wales and connecting to my normal Tiscali broadband after around 5pm has been practically impossible since Saturday. Daytimes are fine, it is evenings when the problem occurs.
Thanks Mr Partington,
It’s good to try and build up a picture of what is happening. So far it would seem that Scotland and England have connectivity at night and Wales have connectivity in the day!
Various Exchanges here in Lincoln are still having issues today. I spoke to two users in the village of Ingham this morning. One said that his (Tiscali) is fixed today and the other (also Tiscali) was still out. Perhaps the first user checked his before 6am and the other was later?
We also have Tiscali users in Lincoln who were fine all night and the last emails came through just before 6am before losing service.
Hi Everyone
Well its now Wednesday Lunch time, and together with several clients I’m still without broadband, we use a small independant ISP Who is doing his best to keep us informed of developements, but thus far open reach are unable to provide any timeframe for a restoration of service.
If anyone wants to take my bet I have tenner to say it won’t happen before the holiday meanwhile 02 are doing very nicely as my monthly download exceeds limits by all time new high!
Anyway I’m off to spend the afternoon trying to pasify distraught clients
Wishing you all a happy if email free Easter
Adrian
Hi Adrian,
Thanks for the input. Looks like I’m in the same boat as you regarding the distraught clients!
Update: In the last hour a couple of my clients in Lincoln have reported a return of service. Many other users still without though.
Patrick
Hi,
I’ve had no internet connection at all since Saturday afternoon. I live near Great Yarmouth in Norfolk – my provider is Tiscali.
I have phoned them twice and on both occasions they advised me to wait 24 hours.
Luckily, I can access the internet at work to check emails etc.
Glad to see we aren’t the only ones affected, we’re with Tiscali and in rural Suffolk. The issue here was complicated on Saturday by our own outage – a lorry brought down the phone line into the village. By Sunday pm the phones were back on but no broadband at all, just a BT error message. Since Sunday evening we have some internet access – email is working but only about half the web: some sites load whilst others are unavailable, for example Eurostar is fine as is Amazon and Tiscali’s homepage, but Eurotunnel, NHS direct, and a lot of other sites don’t load at all. The BBC site is fine until I launch iPlayer and then it grinds to a halt and browser freezes – alas no Archers catch up. However I have found a workaround, if I go via a proxy server in France almost everything works. Our neighbours with BT Broadband have a completely normal service….
Hi,
I am based in Poole, Dorset and according to my router admin I am currently experiencing a connection rate of 11.174kbps instead of my usual 6000+ kbps! Takes me back…… .I am also with Tiscali. At least I have some sort of connection (as long as the websites I am looking at do not use Flash!). Using a proxy server sounds a good idea – I had to do that last year when Abbey had a problem with, you guessed it…..Tiscali not allowing it’s banking customers log into their bank accounts. That took about a week to sort out. So something as major as this – well, anything is possible.
My father-in-law started having issues with Tiscali Saturday last too. By which I mean he has not connectivity. I personally don’t see how this incident only affects tiscali as I imagine the network infrastructure is a share resource and would have expected them to be able to reroute. I wonder if the current financial difficulties are affecting Tiscali, coupled with the incident means they cant afford to reroute.
I wouldn’t think it has anything to do with financial difficulties. It is BT’s responsibility to sort the network out.
Is everyone’s broadband up and running reliably again now?
My connection went down on Saturday and It only came back on again this morning 10 April. I could only get through to an alternative number and kept being told to ring the 0871 tech number without giving me a lot of info. I live in the Wisbech, Cambs area.
Needless to say I am looking to change my ISP
I live in N. Ireland and have not had any connectivity day or night since Saturday afternoon. I have now secured a MAC code from Tiscali as this latest incident was the last straw.
An interesting irony. It’s starting to look like BT are going to get lots of broadband customers returning to them as a result of an outage that they caused :-0
Many thanks for your input John and Bob. Where will you be taking your MAC codes?
In fact I will go to Virgin – fibreoptic – and avoid BT lines altogether. I have a dedicated broadband line with BT and this will become redundant. So, BT aren’t going to come out of it too well. They will lose the Tiscali business and my business phone rental.
I have only been able to access the Internet spasmodically, namely early morning. I live in N.E. Hertfordshire. I am retired and a little technophobic, but would welcome some suggestions as to alternative providers. Unfortunately I have only just missed the renewal contract date I see in February covering the second year of Tiscali provision so presume I would have to pay a penalty to change provider at this stage. Thanks for comments.
Lilford road.
I can not connect to Internet since last Tuesday (April 07).
Still not connected now (April 11).
But I can ping with IP instead of domain name. (can not browse website even with IP)
So I guess there is a problem of DNS.
But when I change my DNS to opendns (208.67.222.222) instead of the tiscali ones in my PC, still not able to ping with domain name.
In command line under windows vista, type:
nslookup http://www.google.com 208.67.222.222
it only tell that the server (208.67.222.222) is unkown.
But pinging 208.67.222.222 is ok.
F*ck!
i have had no internet since sat april4th, i have phoned Tiscali twice a day since and they keep saying the same!! “try again in 24 hours” now today i heard on there answer machine servcie that the issue is resolved and internet shud be back up and working, well not mine, so i called them again today (april11th) only to be told the same, “please check in 24 hours” its all well said and done moving back to bt but i just want to play on my xbox live and it will take weeks for a move to happen, i looked into moving to talktalk and 9th may is the earliest i can go live.
surely tiscali will have this resolved soon
There seems to be an awful lot of Tiscali people affected. Now, is that because ‘Tiscali’ is a keyword in this blog and we never mentioned Be and Talk Talk?
I have heard of a few instances of Be customers being aftected. Has anyone else on Be or Talk Talk or anywhere else been affected?
Further to my post last night, when I woke up this morning around 6.30 am I found I was back on line. A coincidence? Anyways, I will still move to Virgin as Tiscali was getting slower and slower even before the outage.
Probably BT unless there is a better deal at the time of cancellation.
My broad band contract has expired but my phone service started halfway through so Tiscali have told me that I will be billed up to September 1st If I cancel before then.
you’re right patrick it should be BT who will sort this issue. Lot of Tiscali customers can’t understand the situation well. ‘Outage’ that’s the issue as much as Tiscali love to provide the service it is BT’s responsibility to resolve the problem that they caused. BT is taking advantage of that to get new customers & I heard that they are denying the problem.
we are with tiscalli biggest mistake ever had problems since we joined and now the internet will disconnect when it feels like it? all i’m gunna say is heads will roll i work online and solely rely on my connection as my main source of income i dare not use the crappy 3 dongles as the speeds are just abismal. oooo i feel a complaint comming on XD
still no connection
Hi Burdett,
have you tried restarting everything? Maybe time to log a ticket with the ISP.
I am with Tiscali in New Quay south wales and have had no internet since the 4t April today is the 13th and still nothing… Does anyone know which providers are working? If I do not get connected soon or be informed of some form off compensation I will be changing providers.
pembrokeshire, no internet connection with tiscali since satarday!!!
Hi Burdett
Patrick could be right, I reinstalled my Tiscali CD and I got my connection back after a minute or two. I`m not sure if it was just coincedance or not
I live in East London and i still have no phone line or internet. Tiscali say it should be back am so annoyed!
I’m with Tiscali in Hampshire. Had no access since the 4th. Spoke to Tiscali about 6pm yesterday and was told 24 to 48 hrs.
Hi all
I’m from the Skipton area North Yorkshire and
with tiscali. I’ve had no broadband since 09APR09.
Have experienced no problems getting on line with Tiscali. However I have 3 Tiscali e-mail addresses and 1 screaming.net address. Tiscali e=mails fine but can neither send or receive anything via screaming.net since end of last week – Good Friday. Is there a connection between this problem and the damage to cabling at the Olympic site? Or is it perhaps that Tiscali have decided to suspend screaming.net without telling me?
Just got internet connection today, 15th April, for the first time since 4th of April. With Tiscali and live in Orkney!!! No-one else I know up here was affected though!!!
After complaining to Tiscali by e-mail and asking to be compensated they replied with a £10 credit to my account, so I would advise every one to do the same
Hi Markham.ph
We experiencedan outage over the last twenty or so hours starting around 10 AM Thursdat 16th April and was not back yet at 6 AM this morning(17/4)
After many frustrating hours my daughter finally asked me about it and I soon diagnosed that the problem must be external to my property. When ringing Tiscali helpline there was a recorded message about the tunnel, which is the first thing I knew about it.
What are the rules on compensation?
Yours sincerely,
Dion
been offline since sunday 5th… still cant connect at home.
Told Tiscali to stick it and have gone back to BT – at least it is all one provider supplying the whole package.
Cant access any business mail from home…..
Live in Billingborough, lincs. No access through tiscali since 4th April. Its getting very annoying now!
Ratbag: Since the 9th?? Not sure that that would be related to the BT tunnel outage.
Jonesy: The screaming.net problem was a different issue. They apparently forgot to renew their domain name. ooops! (see news: http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3930-tiscali-users-left-screaming-by-lack-of-e-mail.html)
Bob: Thanks for the tip (regarding compensation)
Otto: It’s a shame that BT are getting more business out of an issue they caused!
Thanks everyone for your input.
My server is Pipex/Tiscali. Nobody has been able to access my website since Sunday. I am still waiting to hear from Pipex again, for a reason. Tiscali seems to think it is associated with the Tunnel problem. Problem is, it is causing my clients to lose interest in my website. Any Advice?
David J Jones.
I did think about compensation from Tiscali, but they did tell us that they wouldn’t charge us for the time we were off. Tbh, I’m not going to even bother trying to get any compo, they have been good to us for 5 years and it’s the first real problem we’ve had, it’s not even Tiscali’s fault, so seems a bit harsh to me.
Further to my above comment, it sems that Tiscali, without my consent have taken over my web-space, to put up their browser page; is this unlawful? Try my website http://www.aptwebsite.toucansurf.com and you will connect to the Tiscali web browser.
I know this is old news now but I was without internet connection from 4th to 15th April. Tiscali granted me a £10 goodwill payment which has just been added to my bill. However they have deducted the vat so the payment is only £8-69. How mean is that? I must have spent £20+ on phoning from a ‘different’ phone whilst trying to glean info. It was all rather strange – I live in North East Scotland and did not find anyone else who lost their service.
I have to say that prior to this incident Tiscali were ok but their customer service was non existent during the Olympic site outage and as soon as my contract is up I’m off.
this was a great part thank you for the help.