what is the point in the network status page?

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › what is the point in the network status page?

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Coil

6614 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#980548 5-Feb-2014 10:35

Never noticed that we incorrectly list outages. They are kept onto fairly well at VF.

robjg63

4096 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#980550 5-Feb-2014 10:39

Buzz Bumble:
merve0o0:
When I got home from work I asked the neighbour if his was out also he sad it was.

Unless the neighbour is using the same ISP, that would confirm that it is a lines problem rather than an ISP one. It's in this situation that you often get the "pass the buck" game going on, with Telecom / Chorus and the ISP each claiming they have o problem and blaming the other, while nobody bothers to actually look into and fix the problem. It gets even worse when you're dealing with an ISP that has installed their own equipment in the exchanges. :-(

TimA:
Not all Chorus network faults are recognized or reported by an ISP. If we did report them all it would be a a huge network outage page ...

I have yet to see any ISP's "Network Status Page" that even botheres to list the problems with their own services and equipment. The pages are really only there as brag sheets so visiting potential customers can see the big problems are fixed quickly (supposedly, but the problem usually isn't posted until long after it has been reported or even already fixed) and they don't see the multitude of small problems, some of which are never fixed. :-(

The real issue though is that many of the Help Desks actually use that useless Network Status Page to tell them if there is anything wrong, and so claim there are no ("known") problems when there obviously are.

What he says ^^

If you and the neighbor are out - its probably a 'localised' issue - so thats not going to make it to the network page - if it was a whole suburb and not just a street it would be nice to have the 'Network' page updated - but you can understand why they might not bother - and it could be a chorus issue that they arent in control of....

Whats REALLY annoying is when an ISP has a really big internal issue that affects huge sections of their customer base and the network page says 'Everything is just fine' 'No known problems' and it says latest update 6 months ago! So you call the helpdesk thinking it might just be you and find there is a 3 hour waiting time - that usually gives it away that its not just you.

I think one ISP said recently (might have been flip) we couldnt update our status page because our internet was down....

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

merve0o0

492 posts

Ultimate Geek

#980573 5-Feb-2014 11:17

Chorus van is parked outside the guys place who was digging holes next to the footpath for a fence. im guessing that he got the wire

Buzz Bumble

332 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#980755 5-Feb-2014 15:26

Would have to be a big fence with fairly deep pole holes. :-)

TimA:
Never noticed that we incorrectly list outages. They are kept onto fairly well at VF.

Not "incorrectly listing outages", simply not listing problems at all to hide how hopeless
the really service is ... and that isn't just at Vodafone either. All the ISPs do it.

theEd

341 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#980775 5-Feb-2014 15:34

Buzz Bumble: Would have to be a big fence with fairly deep pole holes. :-)

Encountered an incident a few years back where a cable got cut, and forcefully enough to yank the cable out of everyone's demarc. Turns out the cable was only 1 inch down, not marked on any Chorus maps, and not in any form of conduit/pipe. Just a cable slipped under the dirt. ConnecTel "warning cable below stop digging" tape was sitting on the cable itself so not quite enough warning to be useful :P

hamish225

1418 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#980803 5-Feb-2014 16:11

TimA: So its not like we are going to say: TNA DSLAM-03 is experiencing issues.

why not? that would be very useful, would reduce calls to the call centre... maybe chorus should have a page listing all known faults on the network if the ISP's dont want to do it

*Insert big spe*dtest result here*

Buzz Bumble

332 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#980939 5-Feb-2014 19:21

theEd:
Encountered an incident a few years back where a cable got cut, and forcefully enough to yank the cable out of everyone's demarc. Turns out the cable was only 1 inch down, not marked on any Chorus maps, and not in any form of conduit/pipe. Just a cable slipped under the dirt. ConnecTel "warning cable below stop digging" tape was sitting on the cable itself so not quite enough warning to be useful :P

Yeah, but that was someone installing their own cable to steal all their neighbours' broadband. ;-)

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Neori

82 posts

Master Geek

2degrees

#980948 5-Feb-2014 19:41

hamish225:
TimA: So its not like we are going to say: TNA DSLAM-03 is experiencing issues.

why not? that would be very useful, would reduce calls to the call centre... maybe chorus should have a page listing all known faults on the network if the ISP's dont want to do it

The likelihood of anyone know what equipment they are connected to is zero to none. ISP's can verify if you are in an affected area.

Pretty sure most ISP's get a generalised email from Chorus listing which area is affected and how many would be affected. In most cases there will be an outage affecting 50 or less customers using broadband and phone. How many of those 50 or less are linked to a particular ISP, no ISP will know.

They probably get 100's of these notifications for work being done in the area (whether it be planned or unplanned maintenance), and most outages will occur for 20 minutes or even less.

To have someone update the status page would be a 24/7 job and wouldn't be worth it.

ISP's should definitely update their status page for something that is affecting a wide range of customers/areas. I know most ISP's do. It's just most of the time issues only effect a very minor group and for a short duration.

FireEngine

1223 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#981064 6-Feb-2014 00:15

Neori:
hamish225:
TimA: So its not like we are going to say: TNA DSLAM-03 is experiencing issues.

why not? that would be very useful, would reduce calls to the call centre... maybe chorus should have a page listing all known faults on the network if the ISP's dont want to do it

The likelihood of anyone know what equipment they are connected to is zero to none. ISP's can verify if you are in an affected area.

Pretty sure most ISP's get a generalised email from Chorus listing which area is affected and how many would be affected. In most cases there will be an outage affecting 50 or less customers using broadband and phone. How many of those 50 or less are linked to a particular ISP, no ISP will know.

They probably get 100's of these notifications for work being done in the area (whether it be planned or unplanned maintenance), and most outages will occur for 20 minutes or even less.

To have someone update the status page would be a 24/7 job and wouldn't be worth it.

ISP's should definitely update their status page for something that is affecting a wide range of customers/areas. I know most ISP's do. It's just most of the time issues only effect a very minor group and for a short duration.

Main problems:

Chorus tell ISP's about Chorus issues, Chorus don't attempt to tell ISP's about the impact the the ISP's customers. This makes it easy for Chorus, and they send all ISP's the same message with any status change or update.

Chorus don't provide a status page, they send notifications. Its up to ISP's to do something with them.

Our solution:

Orcon has automated the notifications from Chorus into a status page within our problem management system. This means it is constantly up to date and gives a meaningful list of known Chorus outages, the location affected, colour-coded repair status and affected number of (Chorus) lines. This is then available to our Helpdesk on a lookup basis (to assess whether a calling customer is likely to be affected), but we also drive internal notifications from it.

I set the threshold such that if we get a notification from Chorus that 1000 Chorus lines or more are affected - our Helpdesk staff get an immediate notification of what, where and how big the issue is, typically they will get that notification in less than a minute after Chorus send the notification to us. This is then used to drive our manual website outage page and our IVR message.

Next step will be to automate our new Network Status page to display the outage information, again automated, so that it is timely and up-to-date and closely reflects the relevance to Orcon customers.

Regards FireEngine

clinty

1182 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#981100 6-Feb-2014 09:00

hamish225:
TimA: So its not like we are going to say: TNA DSLAM-03 is experiencing issues.

why not? that would be very useful, would reduce calls to the call centre... maybe chorus should have a page listing all known faults on the network if the ISP's dont want to do it

Similar to what Orion (Canterbury Electrical Lines Company) do. Was really handy during earthquake times

http://www.oriongroup.co.nz/outages.aspx

Chorus can list the exchange, its location, link to coverage map, possible resolution time

Clint

raytaylor

4014 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#981157 6-Feb-2014 12:14

merve0o0: Does any ISP have 24/7 help desk? Besides I would rather talk to some one of that speaks English.

I have customers call my cellphone at 5am if they are having issues - usually its because they cant get the milking shed computer to email a report after a telecom xtra hack. But I still answer the call.

Fireengine: Thats some really fine work you are doing there.

Ray Taylor

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theEd

341 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#981248 6-Feb-2014 14:40

clinty:
hamish225:
TimA: So its not like we are going to say: TNA DSLAM-03 is experiencing issues.

why not? that would be very useful, would reduce calls to the call centre... maybe chorus should have a page listing all known faults on the network if the ISP's dont want to do it

Similar to what Orion (Canterbury Electrical Lines Company) do. Was really handy during earthquake times

http://www.oriongroup.co.nz/outages.aspx

Chorus can list the exchange, its location, link to coverage map, possible resolution time

Clint

Vector do a great job of it too.

FireEngine

1223 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#981260 6-Feb-2014 15:01

theEd:
clinty:
hamish225:
TimA: So its not like we are going to say: TNA DSLAM-03 is experiencing issues.

why not? that would be very useful, would reduce calls to the call centre... maybe chorus should have a page listing all known faults on the network if the ISP's dont want to do it

Similar to what Orion (Canterbury Electrical Lines Company) do. Was really handy during earthquake times

http://www.oriongroup.co.nz/outages.aspx

Chorus can list the exchange, its location, link to coverage map, possible resolution time

Clint

Vector do a great job of it too.

Well power is fairly easy (yes I know Vector do fibre too), after all its a single service and usually it only has a single fault mode (off), so with location you only have to impart three bits of information.

Contrast that with an ISP that may have 20+ services (Chorus broadband, LLU, phone, email, hosting, international, mobile.....), each of which can have several failure modes (down, slow, can't be called, can't call out, no voicemail notifications....), and it may have a geographical, service, logical, time-based demographic then it gets more challenging to present the data in a usable and consumer-meaningful format...

Regards FireEngine

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