Massive VFNZ ADSL outage?

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benmurphy66

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#957605 26-Dec-2013 15:54

we had no service wellinton CBD from 10:18 until some time after 1pm today. Vodafone ADSL

Zeon

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#957628 26-Dec-2013 16:44

dan: the current VF situation is they don't know where the fault is, and don't know any ETA for repair, according to their business helpdesk anyway.

its always nice for people to blame the customer for not having backup internet connection, reality is, sometimes companies don't have the money to pay for things that essentially sit there and do nothing 99.9% of the year. these are small business's not large retail chains who are often struggling to keep going/pay the bills

However, they do actually have a couple 3G sticks they use for spares, if a stores internet is likely to be down for a while, but this doesn't help when a large amount of stores that a geographically a large distance away are all down at exactly the same time.

their main backup is the eftpos system allows for offline transactions to a previously agreed amount, at the banks risk, not sure what is it i think its around 1000$ or so per store, but that wouldn't last long on a day like boxing day, after that its on to zip zaps until the net is backup

I blame the customer no matter how small they are. If they suffer loss because of lack of redundancy and they aren't prepared to accept that loss then that's their problem. Classic NZ attitude - always someone else's fault/responsibility.

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plambrechtsen

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#957771 27-Dec-2013 06:25

Well it made front page with Stuff which is unusual as they tend to never report anything that isn't a Telecom outage.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/9555413/Boxing-day-sales-shambles

InstallerUFB

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#957783 27-Dec-2013 07:22

O great - just had a look at my days work and half the fault jobs appear to be VF customers complaining of DSL & PPP Synced but no browseing - Come on VF if you knew there was a problem why send your customers problems on the Chorus and the feild techs to sort out.

Linuxluver

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#957784 27-Dec-2013 07:29

RunningMan:
dan: Good one Vodafone! those are all retail stores so all have lost eftpos, i am sure the staff is going to be super happy doing zip zap sales on boxing day

Seeing as they depend on internet for a core business function, surely they can transition to a backup connection?

Good point. It wouldn't be outrageous to have primary wired and secondary wireless (or whatever works) connections.....as eftpos would do minimal data anyway compared to streaming sound or video.

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plambrechtsen

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#957786 27-Dec-2013 07:38

InstallerUFB: O great - just had a look at my days work and half the fault jobs appear to be VF customers complaining of DSL & PPP Synced but no browseing - Come on VF if you knew there was a problem why send your customers problems on the Chorus and the feild techs to sort out.

My personal feeling is focus on the other 50% and get someone not field support ring up the first 50% and check they are ok or run 1 min line tests in SPM and close the fault.

coffeebaron

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#957798 27-Dec-2013 08:28

plambrechtsen:
InstallerUFB: O great - just had a look at my days work and half the fault jobs appear to be VF customers complaining of DSL & PPP Synced but no browseing - Come on VF if you knew there was a problem why send your customers problems on the Chorus and the feild techs to sort out.

My personal feeling is focus on the other 50% and get someone not field support ring up the first 50% and check they are ok or run 1 min line tests in SPM and close the fault.

Na, race around all the Vodafone faults first; easy 2min $$ jobs :)

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RunningMan

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#957812 27-Dec-2013 09:01

plambrechtsen: Well it made front page with Stuff which is unusual as they tend to never report anything that isn't a Telecom outage.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/9555413/Boxing-day-sales-shambles

Interesting comment regarding seeking compensation from Vodafone in that article - I wonder how many of those businesses are on residential grade xDSL connections with no SLA?

sbiddle

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#957815 27-Dec-2013 09:10

RunningMan:
plambrechtsen: Well it made front page with Stuff which is unusual as they tend to never report anything that isn't a Telecom outage.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/9555413/Boxing-day-sales-shambles

Interesting comment regarding seeking compensation from Vodafone in that article - I wonder how many of those businesses are on residential grade xDSL connections with no SLA?

And what would they be seeking compensation for? I would seriously find it hard to believe that a retailer in Queensgate without EFTPOS for a few hours would suffer significantly, if at all. That mall has ATMs from every bank spread right across it. Sure it might be a hassle for a customer if they have to walk for 2 mins to find an ATM, but under the circumstances I don't think most customers would find this totally unreasonable.

At the end of the day a business has a choice when it comes to redundancy in any part of their business and has to weight up those costs.

It was a terrible story from Stuff though, clearly written by somebody who knows nothing at all about the topic..

RunningMan

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#957823 27-Dec-2013 09:29

sbiddle: [snip]At the end of the day a business has a choice when it comes to redundancy in any part of their business and has to weight up those costs.

Agreed.

There's a balance between planning for an outage or just dealing with one when it occurs. Utilities (including internet connectivity) are generally pretty reliable in NZ, and it's easy to get complacent, however, they are not going to have 100% uptime, and Murphy's Law says it will happen at the worst possible moment!

I'd suggest that a business that depends on a working internet connection for a function such as this should have a workable backup system. This could range from an EFTPOS terminal that can dial up over POTS to a small business grade router with automatic failover to a 3G USB stick. This is fairly straightfoward and not terribly expensive to set up.

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