[Wylug-discuss] Network outages, the wrong kind of snow

[Andrew 'Leny' Lindley]

From: Anne Wilson <cannewilson at googlemail.com>
Subject: Re: [Wylug-discuss] Network outages, the wrong kind of snow
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2016 09:38:59 +0000

> On 03/02/2016 03:04, Andrew 'Leny' Lindley wrote:
>> I had difficulties at that time.  But I'm on ADSL2+ (all copper to the
>> exchange) which was doing one of it's periodic retrains of the line
>> then.  It does these between 20:00 and 23:00 then again around 01:00
>> several days a month.  I assume they're exchange maintenance slots.
>> 
>> See this
>> 
>> http://aaisp.net/broadband-office1.html
>> 
>> For guidline costs for more reliable Internet.  "You get what you pay
>> for" I'm afraid. 
>>> 
> Not directly relevant, since I'm not in Leeds and not online at that
> time, however....
> 
> My normally reliable FtC connection has been very flakey every time that
> high winds and lashing rain occur - and at 800ft in the Pennines that
> has been quite often lately.  I found it difficult to believe that the
> weather could be causing it, but it has happened so often lately, in an
> exact pattern, that I've come to accept it as true.

Mine isn't in sync with the weather and I'm with A&A so I get to see
the line logs from the exchange in their control pages.  That's the
advantage of the small number of additional pennies for 'the
propeller heads ISP'  :). 

Yours could be the copper between you and the cabinet.  Which you
might be able to work out if your router &| modem has the right
blinken lights (i.e. carrier / [V]DSL goes off).  However, it's also
the case that more people stay in and so use the Internet more during
bad weather.  So it might be something like your provider's contention
at your exchange or e.g. they don't pay for decent network priority
for your service in their backhaul provider's MPLS network zone.
However, if it was this depending on your provider/exchange's customer
demographic I'd expect you to also notice the problems on
e.g. 'homework nights' sometimes (i.e. Sunday eve, end of school
holidays) or e.g. odd Saturday afternoons when people are streaming
sports coverage.

Leny