Vodafone sinks to new low

Falling on my head like a memory

Perhaps Vodafone has a stock of thiotimoline somewhere in the basement, and it is willing the floods to come and make it dissolve.

If that were the case, then...

they'd be considerably better at predicting their market, surely?

Server rooms?

I wonder where their server rooms are located. In the basement? Or on the third floor, as current best practices recommend.

Lake Travis was at 687 yesterday. Full is considered 671 and the normal for July is around 650. And it's pouring, again. The lake was reopened on Friday.

The high on Wed was 78. Normal is 96.

If this is global warming, screw you Al.

Truth in advertising?

I read this story to my wife, who used to live near Newbury.

She wants to know if this is why the theme music for the current Vodafone TV ads is "Drip, drip, drip, little April showers" ?

Not a massive problem

Hmm, I wonder what wireless technologies are assisting the new 'reception'? I should imagine they'll be connected by multiple leased line into contact centres. It's OOH so most employees who's main form of contact is wireless will be in bed surely?

No really important servers will be stored at that location, your going to be looking at the exchanges and data centres not the HQ. There's going to be an IT infrastructure but it should have been designed well (or to be above a flood line). Anyway an international provider doesn't tend to have single point's of failure. Just a thought. . .

Perfect Company to Host the iPhony ...

because with the Buggy iPhone, Vodaphone will be sinking further and like with water, even more full of it.

Just for the benefit of the "continentals", here in the "colonies" Apple has pulled ALL Mac switch ads from TV and print and in it's place is running three times as many iPhony ads.

There is an old saying in Marketing that any professor in that field with agree with - You don't have to advertise (especially heavily) a product that is (1) popular, and (2) in demand.

i.e. the heavier the adverts, the WORSE it's selling.

Built on green belt land

The history of the site might be of interest:-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/330168.stm

re: server rooms

the HQ is staffed largely with Marketing, Finance, Global etc. The IT kit is located largely elsewhere. The HQ could be out of action for weeks and have no discernable impact on customers.

The HQ

"the HQ is staffed largely with Marketing, Finance, Global etc. The IT kit is located largely elsewhere. The HQ could be out of action for weeks and have no discernable impact on customers."

Unfortunately true for many of us :)

What A Bring Article...

... Must of been a quiet day for The Register to ru this article.

Vdafone are not the only ones to suffer from the floods, just the same as the thousands of businesses and people left homeless after the downpours!!

err

Acutaly, if the HQ contained Marketing, Finance, and all the other Mangery-types, them I think you will find an impact, less change for the sake of it, so things will run better.

welcome to the new Voda-Quarium

or is it the new Voda aqua park

The server car park will be a lake as well, last time i was there it was full of potholes and the servers are all on the ground floor, only 3-4 inches above the car park level and there's no protection against flooding. The entire site is on a flood plane along with a scenic river running through it as well.

The funniest thing is there is a massive basement running along each side of the vodafone HQ with the lake in the middle.

Hmm wonder how the IT bunnys are coping with a basement full of IT gear, Furniture, a fully fitted Company Gym, now all re-fitted out as a fresh water Aquarium.

Looking on the bright side, they will probably report a huge corporate take up of 3G data services during this quarter. (since thier LAN is down they will have to rely completly on 3G to connect to the corporate network)

Looking on the bright side there's gonna be a few nice contracts with the complete refit of all LAN/WAN and building facilities at the HQ so plenty of work the the lucky contractors who land that catch.

Although i must ask, should they start fishing for the big one now, or will it be the one that got away...

Re: Server Rooms

Actually, I remember installing quite a bit of kit at Newbury - and can confirm that they are indeed up several flights of steps - necessitating two people to de-rack and then re-rack several 1.6m cabinets full of servers and disks!

Never Mind

Never mind , perhaps they could move to more sunnier Athens , I'm sure more than a few Greek Government Senior Officials , after the Olympic Games bugging fiasco hosted by yours truly , and thus would make plenty of room in a place called Kordyallos!

Well...

Voda is russian for water, after all.

Drink !

I'll drink to that one. hic

Videos

If you are interested there are several videos of the flood on you tube.

Outisde

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMw8ZN6zE5M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMw8ZN6zE5M

(second one complete with staff trying to work out how to cross a road)

And inside

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMw8ZN6zE5M

more vids from newbury

a good one here from inside the foyer...

http://www-hack.blogspot.com/2007/07/business-and-flooding-news.html

Disaster

I work at the HQ and was the one wading in water up to my waste, it really is idiotic to build such a huge site on a flood plane.

And even worse all the equiptment that was needed was in the basements.

The Property have done a great job though and 4 out of 7 are nearly back in working order!