Posts by Michael Davison

Hull Daily Mail: Kcom apologises after firms hit out at costly Internet blackout

Quote:

Thousands of residents and businesses in Hull were left without Internet access for hours after Kcom suffered a network failure.

Firms were counting the cost today after the broadband blackout over the weekend affected Karoo customers.

The failure occurred at 3pm on Saturday and was not rectified until 11pm.

Some large businesses and organisations, including Hull and East Yorkshire Hospital NHS Trust, escaped the problems because they have independent networks.

But Adrian Eves, a Hull-based business manager for Panasonic Europe, said the company had suffered.

He said: "This will have cost local businesses thousands of pounds.

"I am extremely angry and frustrated with Kcom.

"In my job, I have to communicate with factories and offices in China, Japan, the US and Germany."

Dave Beasley, managing director of Classlane Media, a video production company based in Hessle, called for more choice of Internet suppliers for the city.

He said: "I came in specially on the Saturday only to find the Internet wasn't working.

"We had clients expecting to see a DVD on Sunday, but that was not feasible after the Internet went down.

"Our deadlines haven't moved, but we lost a full day's work, so it was hugely inconvenient for us.

"We are moving to Newport, near Howden, soon and we were jumping for joy that we will have other suppliers there."

KCom, with its offices based in Carr Lane, Hull, apologised for any inconvenience the network failure may have caused their customers.

A spokeswoman said: "We had a significant network failure on Saturday starting at about 3pm with service being restored at almost 11pm.

"Working with our suppliers, Nortel and Cisco, we isolated the issue to restore the service.

"We are working with our suppliers to understand the exact root cause of the issue and ensure the appropriate actions are taken to mitigate the risk of it happening again."

http://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/news/Kcom-apologises-firms-hit-costly-Internet-blackout/article-262605-detail/article.html

Good work