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Re: BB outage on Thursday

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On 27/06/2026 10:34, Graham J wrote:
> Davey wrote:
>> At mid-day Thursday, my Zen Broadband went off. Checking the Fritz!Box,
> 
> [Snip]
> 
> A friend in Diss, Norfolk has FTTP from Zen using FRITZ!Box 7530 AX and 
> lost connection from 12:11 to 23:28 Thursday.  I use F8Lure to monitor 
> several connections, and since around 14 May the upgrade to FRITZ!OS 
> version 8.25 has allowed the FRITZ!Box to respond to pings from the 
> internet.
> 
> My friend received an email from Zen on her phone - via 4G or whatever 
> she gets locally - advising her of the fault and listing "Exchange 
> Outage - EADIC - Dickleburgh".
> 
> She did try ringing Zen Technical Support only to find a long queue.  I 
> suspect there were other faults all over the country - perhaps caused by 
> warm weather?  Today <https://servicealerts.zen.co.uk/> shows widespread 
> intermittent connectivity in East Anglia.
> 
> On Friday morning she suffered an outage from 08:29 to 09:26 - curiously 
> at exactly the same time (within a few seconds) of another friend's 
> connection in Saltash, Devon.  So this wasn't a geographically local 
> fault, it was more likely an authentication server fault at Zen.
> 
> So broadband reliability continues to be a problem.  For most people a 
> mobile is an adequate backup - especially if the VoIP service is 
> configured on failure to redirect to the mobile.  A smartphone also 
> gives a minimum level of internet access.  Naturally, there are 
> locations where there is no mobile signal!
> 
> The problem with FTTP is that outages are likely to be multi-hour while 
> equipment is replaced, whereas ADSL or FTTC tended to fail for only a 
> few minutes when interrupted by electrical interference.  

I can't see the logic here. If anything the reverse applies. FTTP is 
GPON or xPON where PON stands for "passive optical network" so the fibre 
goes straight to from house to the switching centre. There is no 
equipment in between to fail and need replacing.


FTTC is almost the same setup except that the fibre terminates at your 
street cabinet where a box of ageing gismos convert the light to 
electrons which then pass the information along copper to your VDSL 
modem/router. So you have additional electronics in a BT street cabinet 
which can fail, be vandalised, suffer power cuts, yes they should stay 
up for a while unless the batteries have been stolen or are time expired.

Openreach say parts for these are getting hard to source, but I think 
they simply don't want to buy any as they want everyone off copper.


Whatever, if
> you run a business and need cloud connectivity for your files, and a 
> phone service for customers to call you: then you need to think 
> seriously about a backup connection facility.
> 
> 

This was always the case. Theft of copper, duct fires, vandalisation of 
street cabinets has always been a problem.

Dave

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Thread

BB outage on Thursday Davey <davey@example.invalid> - 2026-06-27 09:38 +0100
  Re: BB outage on Thursday Graham J <nobody@nowhere.co.uk> - 2026-06-27 10:34 +0100
    Re: BB outage on Thursday Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> - 2026-06-27 09:43 +0000
    Re: BB outage on Thursday Davey <davey@example.invalid> - 2026-06-27 11:03 +0100
    Re: BB outage on Thursday David Wade <g4ugm@dave.invalid> - 2026-06-27 11:42 +0100
      Re: BB outage on Thursday Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2026-06-27 12:07 +0100
        Re: BB outage on Thursday David Wade <dave@g4ugm.invalid> - 2026-06-27 15:49 +0100
        Re: BB outage on Thursday Graham J <nobody@nowhere.co.uk> - 2026-06-27 21:44 +0100
      Re: BB outage on Thursday Peter Johnson <peter@parksidewood.nospam> - 2026-06-27 20:57 +0100
        Re: BB outage on Thursday Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2026-06-27 21:12 +0100
      Re: BB outage on Thursday "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> - 2026-06-27 21:41 +0100
        Re: BB outage on Thursday JMB99 <mb@nospam.net> - 2026-06-29 10:22 +0100
          Re: BB outage on Thursday David Wade <g4ugm@dave.invalid> - 2026-06-29 12:50 +0100
            Re: BB outage on Thursday "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> - 2026-06-29 17:23 +0100
              Re: BB outage on Thursday David Wade <g4ugm@dave.invalid> - 2026-06-29 17:42 +0100
                Re: BB outage on Thursday "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> - 2026-06-29 18:16 +0100
                Re: BB outage on Thursday David Wade <g4ugm@dave.invalid> - 2026-06-29 21:43 +0100

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