back to article UK footie fans furious as Sky Broadband goes TITSUP: Total inability to stream unfair penalties

The Sky Broadband service took an unscheduled half-time break last night, leaving residents of the UK Midlands unable to stream sporting action from Russia. Problems began at around 4pm yesterday with Sky's status page (followed later by its support account) reporting multiple exchange failures in Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    fathers day unbearable with no internet

    So rather than spend time with your kids on fathers day he would rather they were all on the internet and out of the way?

    This must be the world we live in now.

    1. wolfetone Silver badge

      Re: fathers day unbearable with no internet

      In fairness his kids might be dicks.

      1. defiler

        Re: fathers day unbearable with no internet

        In fairness his kids might be dicks.

        I blame the parents.

        1. James_H

          Re: fathers day unbearable with no internet

          Having (foolishly) clicked the Twitter link and looking at a tweet he made on the 8th February, its safe to blame the parents. A classic rant with all the hallmarks we've come to expect these days: stuck caps lock, swearing and no punctuation.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            fathers day unbearable

            Ignoring the fact that "father's day" is purely an invention of greeting card manufactorer's desire to sell more product, lost of service should provide an immediately refund for the lost period.

            Always on internet should be just what it says, lack of service should result in a automatic refund for the whole region affected.

            1. defiler

              Re: fathers day unbearable

              Always on internet should be just what it says, lack of service should result in a automatic refund for the whole region affected.

              And how do you monitor that? What constitutes a loss of service? BGP reconvergence takes maybe 30 seconds - are you going to refund people for 30 seconds on that one or the whole day?

              And, dare I say it, we're talking about cheap consumer lines. If constant uninterrupted internet access is essential to you, you put in two lines from different providers, and you get contracts with stringent SLAs. But that's not cheap enough for you, so things like this happen. And it's fair to say that things like this only really happen occasionally.

              Besides which, on the two occasions that my Plusnet line went off (once during upgrade to FTTC, and once due to a fault), I hooked my phone into my computer for my essential stuff. Streaming the football, whilst important to many, is hardly mission-critical.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: fathers day unbearable with no internet

      "my kids have made fathers day unbearable with no internet give us an eta on the fix so i can finally relax on fathers day."

      Sounds like the kids are the ones with there's no internet issues.

  2. Alan J. Wylie

    Seems to have affected Zen Internet too

    Routing & Core Network Loss of Resilience

    They seem to have had redundancy and no outage.

    One update of interest:

    Engineers are continuing to work on the fibre break.

    The work is currently being delayed by numerous road works.

    1. Cynic_999

      Re: Seems to have affected Zen Internet too

      "

      Engineers are continuing to work on the fibre break.

      The work is currently being delayed by numerous road works.

      "

      More likely that the work was *caused* by one of the numerous road works.

      Also from the link you gave ... "Fibre spicing engineers have arrived at the site and will begin work shortly."

      Hopefully they have brought the correct mix of spices. Curry usually provides a very fast throughput.

      1. Korev Silver badge
        Pint

        Re: Seems to have affected Zen Internet too

        Also from the link you gave ... "Fibre spicing engineers have arrived at the site and will begin work shortly."

        Hopefully they have brought the correct mix of spices. Curry usually provides a very fast throughput.

        LOL, a virtual pint to go with your curry

      2. JimboSmith Silver badge

        Re: Seems to have affected Zen Internet too

        Hopefully they have brought the correct mix of spices. Curry usually provides a very fast throughput.

        Very funny, have an upvote. That despite the fact I almost lost a keyboard to that comment.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    and the England Game ?

    was also broadcast live on BBC-1 and available on Sky Satellite, Freesat and even Terestrial Digital TV.

    I guess the complainers wanted to watch the footie and 'Love Island' at the same time?

    1. Colin Wilson 2
      Paris Hilton

      Re: and the England Game ?

      Not sure that I should admit to knowing this, but 'Love Island' started just as the final whistle in the England vs Tunisia game sounded.

      So it was possible to watch both - er, allegedly

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Compensation

    So... twenty quid (or thereabouts) a month for broadband. If down for 24 hours that makes the compensation...

    ** thrum of fingers on calculator **

    ** number mumbles and minor under-breath curses **

    ** dawning realisation **

    ... about sixty-six shiny new pence, depending on how many days there are in the month. If you include phone line rental as well then you might be up to a quid twenty-five or so. Awesome!

    Halve those numbers if you blagged Sky Broadband for only a tenner... :-)

    /Anon

    (b/c not admitting to having Sky).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Compensation

      So no incentive for them to work hard to get service back up unless they are getting close to the 24 hour mark, I guess.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Compensation

      You have grossly overestimated the charges...

      If you are down for more than 24hrs, you will be credited for the amount of time after the initial 24hr period you were offline.

      So basically you get nothing for the first 24hrs.

  5. applebyJedi

    UHD

    The picture quality was superb on the UHD player channel. The grass was so realistic it affected my hay fever and you could positively feel the England supported anguish until the last gasp goal.

    Sure. the picture crapped out a couple of times, but apart from that it was far superior to HD.

    1. Doogie Howser MD

      Re: UHD

      Perhaps it's my aged eyes, but to me, the foreground picture quality looks the same in UHD as it does in 1080P. The main quality difference I see is that the background is much sharper, so you can see Brazilian female fans in all their finery.

      Woof!

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: UHD

      Did UHD allow you to do a proper count of the midges?

  6. Khaptain Silver badge

    Foresight

    "By 2035, engineers were waiting for the appropriate part to arrive

    Now that's what I call slow delivery : 17 years.

    "and by 2252 they were trying to fit it."

    And somehow you can see way into the future and know that it be fixed in around 234 years

    1. Solarflare
      Flame

      Re: Foresight

      That sounds like pretty standard broadband response times, in my experience.

    2. LeahroyNake

      Re: Foresight

      You beat me to it grrr..

      Could be worse though. ISDN failure at the exchange took BT a whole 2 hours to fix / change the fibre card or something. Awesome response to be fair. The divert to out backup numbers took 3 hours to cancel once the main lines were back up hahahaha

  7. ForthIsNotDead
    Mushroom

    Well, what do you expect...

    "The timing is unfortunate, with streaming services such as iPlayer piloting 4K viewing of England's football shenanigans."

    Well, what do you expect if world + dog is trying to watch a football at the same time in 4K. That's a fuck-ton of bandwidth.

    Live TV over the internet is a really seriously fucking dumb idea. THAT'S WHAT TV MASTS ARE FOR. They can transmit to literally millions of people AT THE SAME TIME.

    I know. Incredible isn't it?

    Stop clogging the intertubes with football FFS. People are missing their Facebook and Twatter. Won't SOMEBODY think of them?

    Where's the HUMANITY?

    1. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

      Re: Well, what do you expect...

      Live TV over the internet is a really seriously fucking dumb idea. THAT'S WHAT TV MASTS ARE FOR. They can transmit to literally millions of people AT THE SAME TIME.

      In some alternative universe, where they invented an internet first, there is probably some geek being hailed a genius for figuring out how much money and bandwidth could be saved by having a single point transmission system to millions, raised on to a pedestal for realising whole continents could be served by a single satellite.

      I don't mind. I don't watch much football and when I do it's on the TV. That gives me two hours of downloading 4K movie rips so they're ready to go when the game's over. That means less inconvenience for me :)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Well, what do you expect...

        "there is probably some geek being hailed a genius for figuring out how much money and bandwidth could be saved by having a single point transmission system to millions"

        Umm, it's called UDP and supports unicast, broadcast, multicast and anycast. Granted it's only real use online is with gaming, but the technology has been around for decades to do this. Norton Ghost even used it to image multiple PCs simultaneously and that was back in the 90's.

        Have we really been so brainwashed by "cloud" that we've forgotten about the actual technology powering it?

        1. Solarflare

          Re: Well, what do you expect...

          I think you completely missed his point there?

    2. Hans 1
      Paris Hilton

      Re: Well, what do you expect...

      Stop clogging the intertubes with football FFS.

      Who cares which team denies England the world cup ?

      When is the last time England played Frauenspiel properly ?

      Paris cause she is a Frau ...

  8. Scott Broukell

    I find that the delivery of such sporting commentary is still more than adequate on the Light program. Plus, at the same time, I can starch my collars for work and darn half a dozen pairs of socks, all under the watchful gaze of Binny the cat, who will be soaking up the last glimmers of warmth from the range. For an extra treat on such occasions as a World Cup, I allow myself some extra bottles of chilled ginger ale! Splendid stuff!

    1. Wellyboot Silver badge

      Was the commentary on the Tunisian all-in wrestling adequate?

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Happy

      I don't believe you listened on the Light Programme. Radio 5 is a newfangled operation, but I believe got its mediumwave frequencies from Radio 4. Therefore you were in fact listening to the commentary on the Home Service.

      Here is the News. And this is John Snagge reading it...

  9. DJV Silver badge

    Ah, Sky logic

    So, if you are "experiencing issues going online" how can you "Please check ... https://servicestatus.sky.com"?

    Telepathy?

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Ah, Sky logic

      Presumably the same way you're able to tweet your supposed lack of internet connectivity...

    2. mrmond

      Re: Ah, Sky logic

      With a phone and 4G, 3G, GPRS, a hotspot, a friends wifi, any free wifi at a pub, restaurant, Mcdonalds, ..does McD's count as a restaurant? who cares. Anyway. Loads of ways to check.

  10. Daedalus

    Tum tee tum

    This event was actually predicted by The Archers, when the villagers gathered in The Bull suddenly and mysteriously lost the video of the match. Ambridge is, of course, somewhere in the Midlands.

    Since the scripts are written and the episodes recorded weeks ahead of time, we must stand amazed at their clairvoyance.

  11. MJI Silver badge

    BT was fine all weekend

    Had it years but for some reason or another never been down.

    Oh and we were streaming Poldark as a nearby tree has blocked our dishes view of Astra 2.

    Just called our aerial and dish installer to move it.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Happy

      Re: BT was fine all weekend

      I don't think they'll be able to move the satellite. I should try and see if you can pay SpaceX enough to gently nudge it into a more convenient orbit?

      1. Borg.King

        Re: BT was fine all weekend

        I think he's wanting them to move the tree.

        1. tfewster
          Joke

          Re: BT was fine all weekend

          It only takes one person to move a dish; You need tree fellers to move a tree

          1. Vinyl-Junkie
            Coat

            Re: BT was fine all weekend

            There's actually an arborist round our way called "T'ree Fellas". Makes me grin every time I see one of their lorries.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Er. just Sky ?

    At some point one of the BBC commentators did advise that there was a FIFA-end problem with the video feed, and viewers all over the world were affected.

    Not sure if that's relevant.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Er. just Sky ?

      Perhaps the video referees were on Sky broadband - and that's how they failed to get through to the ref to tell him that he'd missed not one, but two England penalties?

      1. Vinyl-Junkie
        Joke

        Re: Er. just Sky ?

        he'd missed not one, but two England penalties

        Don't worry, he won't be the last person to miss an England penalty!

  13. Aladdin Sane
    Mushroom

    A Sky spokesperson told El Reg: "A builder scored an own goal on us and other service providers by slicing through a main cable yesterday. It was something our engineers needed extra time to fix, just like Harry Kane. They worked through the night and day to restore service for customers but we are now back in the game with services restored to the areas affected. We're sorry for the inconvenience they have experienced."

    Oh do fuck off.

  14. Captain Scarlet Silver badge

    "I hope to god we are getting compensation for this"

    If you need compensation when the connection goes down, why use any consumer ISP (Even the best service in the world can't cover you from everything). When I used to work on HellDesk for an ISP, I used think every time as I was being yelled at, if they were losing millions of pounds every second why wouldn't they spend a few hundred pound per month for a connection with backup and an SLA.

    1. Adam 52 Silver badge

      Re: "I hope to god we are getting compensation for this"

      Doesn't make much difference. I used to spend much of my life on hold to Sprint. Much to the annoyance of the IT director who imposed the £1,500/month frame relay link on us it managed about 98.5% uptime, whereas the "business" ADSL line for £50/month got 99.95%.

      And the ADSL people would answer the phone and fix things, until they got bought by Pipex.

  15. Hans 1
    Pint

    UK footie fans furious as Sky Broadband goes TITSUP: Total inability to stream unfair penalties

    How can I get the author of this a pint ? I almost wet myself ...

    No, seriously, is there a pint purveyor in the area ?

  16. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
    Pint

    Redundancy...

    Get a battery operated transistor radio -

    693 kHz, 909 kHz, 990 kHz AM

    Radio 5 Live - Commentaries

    1. markrand
      Unhappy

      Re: Redundancy...

      Must I upgrade to a transistorised wireless receiver?

  17. earl grey
    Trollface

    oh, and here's your 2 pee

    Erm, i meant 2 p.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The falling-down game

    Has fallen-down...

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