XT Network down south of Taupo 2010 01 27

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › XT Network down south of Taupo 2010 01 27

1 | ... | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#294570 30-Jan-2010 08:34

I have been having problems with my TX telecom since i bought it in 2009...i was told to do the usual..take out the battery and sim etc etc until i got sick of it...i even went to Dr reynolds personally and the Ministry of Consumers Affairs BUT beleive it or not they just poo pood me and thought i was nuts...NOW exactly what happened to me then is NOW the problems that i had to put up with...i was even given a 2nd generation simcard a month ago as they told me they were having problems with the original ones...i dont know BUT now i am so happy thet i am not nuts like they 1st thought!!!!

friedCrumpet

271 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 2

#294582 30-Jan-2010 09:40

Ping: Good questions being pointed Telecoms way: http://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/c...

12.52pm: Question from Kiwibank: Why has Telecom not enabled in-country roaming so customers can use other company's networks during outage? Quin: Most phones not compatible between different networks.

Is he serious? I'm can't think of an XT phone that wouldn't work on the GSM networks of Vodafone or 2Degrees.

kfella2000

495 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 9

#294584 30-Jan-2010 09:46

I had a situation this week where I was almost about to sign up for XT and all that was holding me back was just making sure from my XT work phone that the 3G coverage was in my area of town and it is. 3G coverage from Vodafone was not available in my area or so I thought until I discovered they had a 3G extended band which is quite strong at my house. So I have changed back to Vodafone from 2degrees as this outage did put me off XT

quickymart

14940 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 13954

ID Verified

#294597 30-Jan-2010 11:05

edit: wrong thread.

Doctor

39 posts

Geek

#294644 30-Jan-2010 15:06

Here's hoping they've seen the last of it

I'm geniunely curious as to what happened though. I figure an RNC was involved somewhere

I also wonder what it would take to get a roaming agreement setup with Vodafone, if my understanding is correct all those XT phones will be trying to connect to any present network but without a roaming agreement Vodafone's towers will be responding with "yeah I'm here, no you can't join"

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1528

#294654 30-Jan-2010 16:02

friedCrumpet:
Ping: Good questions being pointed Telecoms way: http://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/c...

12.52pm: Question from Kiwibank: Why has Telecom not enabled in-country roaming so customers can use other company's networks during outage? Quin: Most phones not compatible between different networks.

Is he serious? I'm can't think of an XT phone that wouldn't work on the GSM networks of Vodafone or 2Degrees.

well I don;t know how feasible it is to arrange roaming of this kind, but aren't most XT phones quad band for GSM? They wouldn't work on Voda's 3G network, but would on the GSM network.

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

murray29

24 posts

Geek

#294711 30-Jan-2010 20:31

freitasm:
murray29: Well Guys - It looks like telecom have sorted pretty much all their problems out.

See you next month.

Murray. (vodafone user 10+ years)

So you you didn't actually experience problems first hand?

Hi - Yes I did, my employer uses Telecom, I was the only one with a working phone on site that day. In order for work to proceed, my phone was used to communicate with the outside world, costing me money.

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
80655 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 41053

Administrator

ID Verified

Trusted

Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#294729 30-Jan-2010 21:06

murray29:
freitasm:
murray29: Well Guys - It looks like telecom have sorted pretty much all their problems out.

See you next month.

Murray. (vodafone user 10+ years)

So you you didn't actually experience problems first hand?

Hi - Yes I did, my employer uses Telecom, I was the only one with a working phone on site that day. In order for work to proceed, my phone was used to communicate with the outside world, costing me money.

Business expense? Personal phone? Send an expense claim to your employee - it's their business and it was their option to having the contract with Telecom. Using a mobile as the only communications means makes no sense for business. What is your employer's "Plan B"? Use your mobile for free?

Referral links: Quic Broadband (free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE) | Samsung | AliExpress | Wise | Sharesies

Support Geekzone by subscribing (browse ads-free), or making a one-off or recurring donation through PressPatron.

ajw

1968 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 369

#294745 30-Jan-2010 22:03

Perhaps we could go back to the dark ages and use carrier pidgeons to send messages.

Doctor

39 posts

Geek

#294750 30-Jan-2010 22:25

ajw: Perhaps we could go back to the dark ages and use carrier pidgeons to send messages.

Implementing RFC1149 as we speak...

paradoxsm

3000 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#294751 30-Jan-2010 22:29

In case anyone was wondering, it's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I..."

Pigeons with flash-drives attached, I'd seen this before.

Samsung

Shop now on Samsung phones, tablets, TVs and more (affiliate link).

ajw

1968 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 369

#294752 30-Jan-2010 22:29

Doctor:
ajw: Perhaps we could go back to the dark ages and use carrier pidgeons to send messages.

Implementing RFC1149 as we speak...

I only half believe Vfone when I read articles like this. Customers cannot walk away from an existing two year contract. It costs a small fortune to buy your way out especially with a fully featured handset.

http://www.ashburtonguardian.co.nz/news/ashburton-news/xt-customers-let-their-fingers-do-the-talking-1338-0.html

murray29

24 posts

Geek

#294773 31-Jan-2010 00:22

freitasm:
murray29:
freitasm:
murray29: Well Guys - It looks like telecom have sorted pretty much all their problems out.

See you next month.

Murray. (vodafone user 10+ years)

So you you didn't actually experience problems first hand?

Hi - Yes I did, my employer uses Telecom, I was the only one with a working phone on site that day. In order for work to proceed, my phone was used to communicate with the outside world, costing me money.

Business expense? Personal phone? Send an expense claim to your employee - it's their business and it was their option to having the contract with Telecom. Using a mobile as the only communications means makes no sense for business. What is your employer's "Plan B"? Use your mobile for free?

Yes personal phone - the money isn't an issue, I think Telecom and vodafone should put a roaming agreement in place, the same thing could happen to vodafone tomorrow however unlikely. my perks more than cover any little expenses like a half hour phonecalls etc when unable to use our xt phones - My salary is 50 hours a week, never work more than 45, get paid extra if called out during weekends, fuel card for my car, unlimited use of phone if its working etc etc.
It seems incredible to me a company of telecoms size and experience cant get it right, but then everything in my business is built by the cheapest bidder, and no doubt a similar deal here with Telecom and Alcatel-lucent.
Overall IMO Telecom has a good service from a work perspective and I hope they do get it sorted out for good.

Murray

exportgoldman

1202 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 3

Trusted

#294786 31-Jan-2010 07:51

No one has really talked about the actual problem (as I see it anyways) here, in that Radio Network Controllers (RNC's) are a new component of 3G networks, and a incredibly important one as you can see when one goes down.

Whatever standards group designed the RNC and how it plugs into a 3G network designed it as a single point of failure, there is no ability to load balance, cluster, or swap out/redirect the traffic for a RNC. If a RNC goes down, the cell sites attached to it will no longer work until the RNC is repaired or replaced (and then the configuration restored.) Simply bringing one back online after a crash seems to take 12-36 hours either because of XT's config, or the number of cell sites Telecom are connecting to them.

There have been multiple RNC failures around the world affecting large chunks of cities and countries, including through Europe, America and even here in New Zealand (Vodafone's RNC's have failed before as well.)

RNC's are designed to handle 10 million odd mobile connections, and are multi-million dollar pieces of kit, so the design spec is well within what Telecom are trying to do - on paper at least if you are a network design engineer.

Vodafone in NZ have 6 RNC's in their 3G network, so when a failure occurs, it brings down only a small chunk of their network (e.g. the RNC failed in Newmarket about 6? months ago, and was down for a large chunk of the day, 3G was down but it didn't make the news or tanish their brand because it was a small chunk of their network.)

Vodafone have I suspect learned that while RNC's have been promised to scale very well, they simply cannot be made fault tolerant and need multiple RNC's to minimize disruption when they fail. I suspect that Vodafone's RNC's also are quicker to come back online because they are only having to bring up at a guess 200 cell sites, not 1000 when they crash.

I asked this in the first thread when XT went down to NeilR about the amount of RNC's XT has, and NeilR said he and Telecom was happy with their design of the XT network.

NeilR said a different component of the RNC failed this time and I assume was swapped out, so it not a config or fault continuing over from the last 2 XT failures, it's simply a broken part in a RNC which needs to be replaced. A normal part of operation of a mobile network. Parts fail, they are replaced.

If you cannot hot swap or load balance RNC's because of their design and a basic component failure can take down half your network for 24?+ hours then I ask NeilR and Telecom again if they are still happy with the design especially the small number of RNC's XT has in their network build. And now especially since their premier XT brand has now been damaged by multiple day long outages.

I suspect that perhaps Telecom thought they would get two RNC's until they had a decent chunk of users on their XT network as the RNC's are expensive, 2 can handle the current load, and only once you have a large number of XT users would be it a wise thing to do to disrupt downtime by then dividing XT up into more RNC's. I would be willing to bet that Telecom will be buying more RNC's for their XT network.

I'm not a radio engineer, this is simply my thoughts having been interested in mobile network design and after doing research on this for a long time :-) Im sure there are others which know for sure, but they are all keeping mum because they work for Telecom or for Vodafone and it's rude to call your competitors names :)

Tyler - Parnell Geek - iPhone 3G - Lenovo X301 - Kaseya - Great Western Steak House, these are some of my favourite things.

johnr

19282 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 2526
Inactive user

#294789 31-Jan-2010 08:54

Vodafone does not have a RNC in Newmarket

John

1 | ... | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18