back to article Major London problem hits BT broadband across southeast

BT is struggling to get its broadband service up and running in parts of the capital and across the southeast of England this afternoon, after the telecoms giant was hit by a massive outage. The company has coughed to a "serious incident" and is currently broadcasting its woes on Twitter. BT is in fact fielding messages from …

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  1. James Boag

    That may explain why Spotify was a bit sticky this afternoon up in Scotland :)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      They apparently went a bit too far when they blocked The Pirate Bay!

  2. xyz Silver badge
    Headmaster

    Forget the broadband, BT please fix the grammar

    From BT's site

    Dialling codes affected: 0203, 0207, 0208

    We're really sorry but we've got a problem at the moment in the London and surronding area's, which means that some of our customers will be having trouble getting online. We're trying to fix the problem as quickly as we can.

    The HORROR!!!! >>>area's<<<<

    1. Giddy Kipper
      Headmaster

      Re: Forget the broadband, BT please fix the grammar

      >>>> surronding <<<<

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Headmaster

      Re: Forget the broadband, BT please fix the grammar

      Never mind Beelzebub's own apostrophe, there is surronding which should be 'surrounding' ?

    3. Chris Miller

      Re: Forget the broadband, BT please fix the grammar

      Muphry's Law strikes again!

      1. wowfood

        Re: Forget the broadband, BT please fix the grammar

        its a proven fact when you try to be a grammar nazi, you will undoubtedly use either poor grammar, or you'll spell it grammer.

        *shudders*

        1. wowfood

          Re: Forget the broadband, BT please fix the grammar

          It's^

    4. Soruk
      FAIL

      Re: Forget the broadband, BT please fix the grammar

      >Dialling codes affected: 0203, 0207, 0208

      Sigh. The dialling code for London is 020. The 3, 7 and 8 make up the first digit of the 8-digit customer number.

      1. Martin 71 Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: Forget the broadband, BT please fix the grammar

        Yeah, I find this more worrying than the poor grammar and spelling, the fact they get basic technical details about the phone system wrong!

        1. Ragarath
          Thumb Down

          Re: Forget the broadband, BT please fix the grammar

          Do you really think the whole of London is on one exchange and uses the code 020?

          *Sigh*

          1. William Gallafent
            Stop

            Re: Forget the broadband, BT please fix the grammar

            “Do you really think the whole of London is on one exchange and uses the code 020?”

            Nobody mentioned exchange's, and nobody suggested that. The dialling code is 020. If I'm calling from the line 020 7123 4567, and I dial 8765 4321, the call will get through to the number 020 8765 4321. If my dialling code is not 020, then I need to use the dialling code 020. There are many more exchanges than three in London, the 7, 8 and 3 correspond broadly to inner London, outer London and "new numbers because we ran out of 7 (or 8) prefix numbers on this exchange. Each exchange provides (I think) numbers that start (020 7 (and sometimes 020 3)) or (020 8 (and sometimes 020 3)). And so on.

            1. Ragarath

              Re: Forget the broadband, BT please fix the grammar

              It means nothing that they have aggreated the the code 020 to just mean London and therefore any call originating in this aggreated zone need not use 020. For example the code +44 means the whole of the UK to the rest of the world.

              The exchanges (what matter) have a dialling code associated with them. This is 020XX that is the dialling code. I know Londoners think they are special, but your not. You phones work the same as the rest of the UK.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Forget the broadband, BT please fix the grammar

                "This is 020XX that is the dialling code"

                No it isn't. London is a former director area (along with Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester and so on...) Those cities have codes in a different format.

                The telephone number is made up of a city code, an exchange code and then the telephone number.

                London codes are absolutely not 020xx - dialling codes in former director areas ARE special - they don't work the same as the rest of the UK. The history of STD is too complicated and uninteresting to go into here (wiki it if you're bothered) but the way numbers work and what they technically mean (a telephone number being a device address) is different in these cities.

                BT made a technical error in the way they described these codes, but they adopted a format that I expect most people are familiar with. This misunderstanding has come about due to the previous London codes that genuinely were 0171 and 0181 - there was a direct translation from 0171 to 020 7 and from 0181 to 020 8, hence the confusion.

                Finally, there's an Ofcom proposal to remove local dialling from London and some other cities. This is because overlay dialling codes are not geographically distinct and the likely result is wrong numbers being called. Increasingly people dial full numbers anyway, driven by the rise of the mobile phone. I don't know if this proposal has gone ahead yet or has even been approved, but logically it must happen.

            2. David Beck
              Thumb Down

              Re: Forget the broadband, BT please fix the numbers

              Yes and BT are complete idiots regarding these allocations. When I lived in London my first number was 845x xxxx, guess what happened on a regular basis. Not only that but the specific 0845 number was allocated to a company who called parents to report a kid not in school. We were reported to the police regularly for making "spamming" phone calls. After the first few times the woman who did the phone stuff for the Met knew us and just binned the complaints. BT's position was, tough, if you don't like it you can have another 845 number. They could have but refused to tell the company using the 0845 number to not put a number in the CLI field as their number was out-going only anyway.

              Note for the pedantic among you, yes the 0845 number would have an additional final digit, which if you fail to dial the "0" is ignored, the resulting number was the 8 digits of my London number. Well designed BT, "useless" is the kindest thing I can say.

  3. Anonymous John
    Unhappy

    Three

    Major problems with its Internet service today as well. Random DNS look-up failures mean that few websites have been available today. And the few that are are intermittent. Non-web services are normal.

    1. Anonymous John
      Unhappy

      Re: Three

      I love Three's Customer Service.

      "I'm getting DNS look-up failures on all but a few websites. All other Internet apps are normal".

      "There's a mast down at XXX. Are you anywhere near that?"

      "No, and it wouldn't cause this problem."

      "Have you turned the phone off and on?"

      "Yes, but it wouldn't cause this problem."

      "Take out the SIM and give the contacts a rub."

      Where's the headbang icon?

      1. Allan George Dyer
        Coat

        Re: Three

        Theory: The name Three refers to the length of their Customer Service script. From previous data, they found that 95% of problems could be resolved with one of those answers, and a 95% clear-up rate within 30 seconds sounds very good.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Three

          Yup. The reason 99% of the time customers get treated like muppets, is because 99% of the time customers are muppets.

  4. Lee Dowling Silver badge

    And, in a typical display of cosmic karma, the dual-ADSL2+ connections that my workplace runs on a load-balancing / failover system for which we have SMS-controlled remote hard-rebooting of the routers, because the connection (not the routers) is SO unreliable we need that just to stay online for most of the day even though we're only FEET from the main town exchange in a London suburb - it's working fine, and has been all day.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Never mind the grammar

    Personally I like the *twat* oops sorry twitter user who asks BT when the Internet will be fixed?

    What all of it? I wouldn't give that much responsibility to BT.........

    1. theblackhand
      Go

      Re: Never mind the grammar

      This was my fault - when fixing some equipment, I ended up with a left over screw and now some of the Internet is spilling onto the floor.

      I'm just on a train at present, but will get back to the office later today with the missing screw.

      Unless, of course, you are out when I call.

      Mr B T Engineer

    2. This Side Up
      Headmaster

      Re: Never mind the grammar

      Of course there's no such thing as "the internet".

  6. WanderingFool

    Makes you wonder if Anon got cranky over their blocking TPB and decided to nuke them.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I can picture it now

      But even Anon wouldn't be that stupid.

      "OMG they blocked our torrentz, lets take down the interwebz"

      *10 minutes later after the internet is down*

      "OMG I can't access mah pr0nz, no internet?... NOES!!!"

  7. Gti Jazz Blue
    FAIL

    FARADAY again

    Well if it is FARADAY again it is the third major failure recently, even effected us down on the South Coast.

    Wrote to my MP last time asking if BT are a competent enough supplier, he still hasn't had a response from the Minister responsible (Ed Vaizey). So emailed him and reminded him and pointed out the failure again today.

    1. TRT Silver badge

      Re: FARADAY again

      "So emailed him and reminded him and pointed out the failure again today."

      He hasn't got it yet.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: FARADAY again

      Erm, you chose to use them as your ISP - so why are you asking your MP if they're competent enough? They're not the only ISP in the UK, you have a choice.

  8. TRT Silver badge

    OOPS!

    Sorry. I accidentally googled Google. Mea culpa.

    1. Annihilator
      Go

      Re: OOPS!

      Follow BT's advice of forcing an unexpected reboot, all will be well.

      1. TRT Silver badge

        Re: OOPS!

        Was that BT or IT's advice?

        I want one of Roy's answering machines, BTW.

        1. Steve Evans

          Re: OOPS!

          Well the tape unit is an old Revox reel to reel. I have one in the attic... How you'd control it automatically, when most of the mechanism is mechanical, is the big question!

  9. James 100
    FAIL

    To be fair, it's sometimes depressing how often "turn it off and on again" fixes things.

    Early last year, I had an escalated broadband fault. Sync was fine, VP and VC were right, the cells just weren't getting where they needed to. I power-cycled the router as requested, just to be sure - still no luck. "Have you tried power cycling the line card?"

    "Nope, that wouldn't help anyway, I'm sure"

    Some time later, everything started working. Message came back "it did."

    1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

      Rebooting line cards fixes lots of weird problems - most of which BT try to blame on your kit.

  10. Mayhem

    Surronding areas.

    Going by the faults hitting our service desk, apparently London and Surronding Areas includes Truro and Bristol.

    By that standard, Sheffield probably is the same issue...

  11. TeeCee Gold badge

    Key word here is "Redundancy".

    As in:

    a) What should be in place to prevent a piece of equipment failing having this level of impact.

    b) What should happen to the person responsible for the lack of it.

    1. cosymart
      Facepalm

      Re: Key word here is "Redundancy".

      So you would have a complete exchange on standby just in case? And just where would you locate this spare building?

      1. Gti Jazz Blue

        Re: Key word here is "Redundancy".

        You build redundancy into the set up of the exchange, it's systems and environment, then short of the actual building failing (falling down etc) the network should continue to function.

        BT have a major responsibility due to their almost monopoly on the infrastructure used by many. They need to live up to that responsibility.

    2. Bob H
      Boffin

      Re: Key word here is "Redundancy".

      Resilience = having sufficient equipment, facilities, people or processes in place to negate a failure.

      Redundancy = Having too much equipment, facilities or people.

      I prefer resilience over redundancy.

      1. Gordon 11
        Unhappy

        Re: Key word here is "Redundancy".

        Redundancy = Having too much equipment, facilities or people.

        Surely Redundancy is getting rid of all the people, then wondering why the equipment doesn't just do what you want it to do, merely by you looking at it.

      2. sabba
        Holmes

        Re: Key word here is "Redundancy".

        Surely, in this context, redundancy is not about having too much of something but having just the right amount. In the case of systems / processes, resilience ('the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties') is often provided **through** redundancy ('the inclusion of extra components that are not strictly necessary to functioning, in case of failure in other components').

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Key word here is "Redundancy".

      You can have resilience, but it'll cost. Lots. Providing it for everyone just means they lose all their customers to cheaper providers without resilience.

  12. Chris 3
    Black Helicopters

    I wonder whether...

    RBS & Natwest use BT circuits into their data centres?

    1. cosymart
      Holmes

      Re: I wonder whether...

      No, but RBS might use BT infrastructure.

    2. Terry Barnes

      Re: I wonder whether...

      I suspect those banks don't use consumer broadband for business critical applications.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    nothing to do with blocking pirabay,

    presumably?

  14. AndrueC Silver badge
    Meh

    My FTTC connection has been crap for the last two days. It's definitely not on my end but other than that I can't say. Used to be a steady 55/14 and now it's an average and highly variable 33/11.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Devastated.

  15. Arachnoid
    Facepalm

    Unrelated as it wasnt the same guy who tripped over the server power lead in London and Sheffield?

  16. Werner McGoole
    Joke

    I'm on VM

    So I can gloat. For a change.

    1. Chads

      Re: I'm on VM

      Never had any problem with VM myself, however I did have difficulty responding to a telephone survey the other day. The question was 'would you recommend VM to a friend?' The response was along the lines of:

      If it's the ex-Telewest network then Yes

      If it's the ex-NTL network then probably not

      If it's unbundled BT circuits then all bets are off

      Strangely the survey-droid couldn't cope with this and asked the question again

  17. Tringle

    QED

    Thus proving for all those who haven't quite got it yet that any enterprise that relies on 'the cloud' (aka cloud cuckoo land) for essential or important services is foolishly vulnerable potentially capricious and often unreliable 3rd parties.

    The 'cloud' might be cheaper than keeping everything in house - and there's a reason for that, it's because it's cr*p.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: QED

      If your enterprise relies on the cloud, don't use consumer broadband to connect to it, seems to be the lesson of this failure.

  18. Petrea Mitchell
    Black Helicopters

    Is anything working over there?

    Major bank can't take money, massive broadband outages-- is anything computer-related actually functioning in the UK right now?

    1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: Is anything working over there?

      El Reg seems to be OK.

      A case of "Fog in BT exchange, internet cut-off", perhaps.

  19. Gti Jazz Blue
    WTF?

    Odd issue too

    The odd thing is that there was some packet traffic OK - I could ping the DNS servers at our ISP and the OpenDNS ones but couldn't do a lookup using them.

    Our ISP initially stated that it was an Authentication issue, though the routers on both of my circuits effected showed that they were fine and authenticated.

  20. drizzy

    BT's routing

    The outage in the southwest (Bristol/Truro) and London is very likely to be related to Sheffield. I am in southwest London and my traffic is routed to Sheffield before coming back to London and the wider internet (adding a needless 15ms latency). I've seen evidence from a couple of others (at least one in west London, one in Somerset) that they are also routed via Sheffield. It's like everyone south and west of a certain point in London gets routed via Sheffield.

    I suspect it is highly likely that the two are linked!

  21. JaitcH
    Unhappy

    BT is like a Vera Lynn song that came to mind ...

    with changed words. We'll muddle through .. why can't BT do anything right?

    ... don't know where,don't know when ...

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They did this while they install...

    ...the branching hardware that shunts everything to GCHQ.

    I did not say this. I was not here.

  23. Sirius Lee

    Not the first time

    When my BT internet connection stopped working yesterday I just switched the modem off and on again. It's not something BT needed to tell me because it happens twice a week every week. My hope is that there really is some underlying problem that, because of its huge impact this time, will be fixed for good now.

  24. neomancer
    FAIL

    bt are doing lots of work at faraday as all of the olympic traffic will be routing throught that exchange... faraday has been a major problems for people i know at an ISP.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    oh no cat with twitter account can't access Facebook ! Better downgrade the banks :-)

  26. Just a geek
    FAIL

    BT seriously need to sort out their outage reporting process. Kent was listed as one place as affected by one tool but not another and for most of yeterday evening broadband was slower than dial up.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    020 0hhh

    0hhh no. So people really think London is limited to 020 3, 020 7 and 020 8.

    What about 020 0 and 020 1 numbers then?

  28. David Strum
    Mushroom

    Good – I hope BT Blows up

    I just don’t like BT's service. I think they are stingy with their download quota.

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