Definitely some odd stuff going on for the last 15 - 20 minutes. Some sites loading fine, others are borked. The status page is still not loading for me.

Haven't been too impressed with Voyager recently. I had another outage a couple weeks back and the status page showed everything being operational. Same with the Chorus maps - everything looked fine. Tried to contact support and they responded a day or two later confirming the outage.

This is their website right now:

It's working again now but I got no individual notification of this happening .

I also have no idea where my service terminates so that info isn't really that helpful 

richms:

 

I also have no idea where my service terminates so that info isn't really that helpful 

 

Hi all. All valid questions here. Just dropping a message to acknowledge them. Let me ask some questions today and get back to you. 

We had 15-20 minute outages reported across multiple clients and ISPs last night starting at 11:52pm and ending at 1:57am.  I was guessing Chorus maintenance.

Chorus are doing a bunch of software upgrades all over their network right now, so it could be related to that. However as posted above there was planned work on our side last night as well. I'll check in with the team today and respond to questions.

~H

Firebirdnz:

 

Chorus are doing a bunch of software upgrades all over their network right now, so it could be related to that. However as posted above there was planned work on our side last night as well. I'll check in with the team today and respond to questions.

 

 

 

~H

 

richms:

 

It's working again now but I got no individual notification of this happening .

 

 

 

I also have no idea where my service terminates so that info isn't really that helpful 

 

It's a bit like what I said in https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=49&topicid=318757&page_no=1#3344326, particularly:

 

It's been particularly frustrating because 11pm/midnight isn't exactly late for a lot of people, but at least with advance notice you can plan around it.

 

That's not a stab at Voyager specifically, it seems to be the case with all ISPs (except Quic who appear based on that thread to be proactive on notifying customers), especially when you saw the Reddit posts during the Chorus maintenances. But I can easily imagine someone on a Teams/Zoom call with someone in the UK getting cut off unaware, at least with notification you can reschedule or use other services if available.

Taking Voyager for instance, even if you know where to find the status page, the Subscribe to Updates are hidden, only just realised that there is still actually an RSS feed available, but it's not obvious without inspecting HTML. (https://status.voyager.nz/history.rss and .atom), and I don't think any of the other main retail ISPs have a subscribable status page.

But yeah, I got caught out last night and confused because the loss of connectivity seemed random at first (but in hindsight was due to most/all US bound traffic going through 220/Global Gateway and other traffic just going through MDR).

Firebirdnz:

 

We are working on expanding the capability to enable customers to subscribe to notifications, which seems like it would be very welcome. I have also feed back to the Engineering team about adding more customer friendly information into the notifications so you can more easier identify what the maintenance means for user experience, as you're correct a maintenance at MDR doesn't mean much for you!

 

This sounds really good, thank you!

I'm in Wellington North & my VDSL went down just before midnight last night. First connection drop in several months - they usually only happen when the electric goes out. I gave up after 30mins of waiting for it to authenticate, before switching the modem off & going to bed. All is fine this morning. :)

I did note last night that the Voyager status page mentioned scheduled maintenance at the time, but noted it was referring to Auckland & that affected customers were pre-notified of this upcoming maintenance. I was not notified. Since my internet is usually so rock solid however, I assume the drop out was related to this maintenance. Nothing showed for my area on the Chorus outage page.

I notice there are five more maintenance events scheduled over the next two weeks, including another affecting Auckland, & the description for the maintenance is the same as last nights. If there are any Voyager staff here, can I expect my internet to be lost during those times as well? Am hoping if it is, that this is not enough connection drops to get me kicked down the DSLAM at the exchange. 

(And before anyone says get fibre, I know & please don't. That's a work in progress for this difficult property, but for now it's VDSL or fixed wireless). EDIT Also apologies for the wall of text. I'm adding line spaces but they are not showing up on posting.

catspyjamas:

 

I'm in Wellington North & my VDSL went down just before midnight last night. First connection drop in several months - they usually only happen when the electric goes out. I gave up after 30mins of waiting for it to authenticate, before switching the modem off & going to bed. All is fine this morning. :)

 

...

 

Am hoping if it is, that this is not enough connection drops to get me kicked down the DSLAM at the exchange. 

 

If you're still using PPPoE, it was probably only your PPPoE connection that dropped, the modem should've stayed synced?

Regardless, my memory of DLM was that it ignored longer down periods (and it was sometimes a good way to fool it to reset), it was when the sync was dropping regularly that it'd start reprofiling. I don't think I've seen a DLM caused drop on my line in a while so not even sure if it's still in use?

As said earlier in the post, Mayoral Drive, 220 Queen Street are the main locations that affect us broadband users, Piermark Drive from memory is where they have some datacentre operations. The other main one that probably affects us is the Sydney one on the 20th/21st (and maybe the 11th/12th since Mayoral Drive is mentioned there too).

One of our customers Providers DTS, send out maintenance and outage information to *affected* customers, and to our surprise, there was an email we got on their behalf, notifying them/us that their connection had been noticed as down for 20 minutes or more. 

This would be awesome for other ISP's to adopt. 

snj:

 

catspyjamas:

 

I'm in Wellington North & my VDSL went down just before midnight last night. First connection drop in several months - they usually only happen when the electric goes out. I gave up after 30mins of waiting for it to authenticate, before switching the modem off & going to bed. All is fine this morning. :)

 

...

 

Am hoping if it is, that this is not enough connection drops to get me kicked down the DSLAM at the exchange. 

 

 

If you're still using PPPoE, it was probably only your PPPoE connection that dropped, the modem should've stayed synced?

 

Regardless, my memory of DLM was that it ignored longer down periods (and it was sometimes a good way to fool it to reset), it was when the sync was dropping regularly that it'd start reprofiling. I don't think I've seen a DLM caused drop on my line in a while so not even sure if it's still in use?

 

As said earlier in the post, Mayoral Drive, 220 Queen Street are the main locations that affect us broadband users, Piermark Drive from memory is where they have some datacentre operations. The other main one that probably affects us is the Sydney one on the 20th/21st (and maybe the 11th/12th since Mayoral Drive is mentioned there too).

 

Thanks snj - interesting observation, as my DSL light was indeed on solid, it was only my internet light flicking between being out & rapid blinking indicating it was trying to connect. I had no internet on any machine connected to it. I did wonder if my trusty 3 year old modem had sucked a kumara, until I saw the Voyager status page. 

That's helpful to know it's only likely to be 2 upcoming maintenance periods likely to affect broadband users (oops re-read - I think 4 mention Auckland). If I interpret what you've written correctly, the locations referred to are where the systems undergoing maintenance are, not the locations of affected customers? Also helpful to know. Interesting re long periods - does 20-30mins count as long? I'd normally be in bed by the times the maintenance is scheduled so it's no biggie, it's just the DSLAM thing I'm concerned about. 

I think DSLAM re-profiling is still a thing - my Aunt has been re-profiled fairly recently after some interruptions in connection.