Disaster At Eclipse Internet tonight - all support staff dead.....

....that can be the only explanation for me waiting in a call queue for their
tech support for 32 minutes! - and, no, I didn't get through in the end, I
just gave up.

I haven't been with them long - the speed is abysmal, the sales staff *very*
cagey about the amount of bandwidth restriction taking place, and tech
support appear to be soundly asleep, or dead.

I need a MAC, I think - any suggestions for a decent ISP?

Oh dear, it is sad to see this as they were very good, just a short
while ago. As others hint round here, I'd leave changing until BT have
sorted themselves out as many other ISP's have issues as well (I think
with the huge support that max is costing them all).

Ryan

On 23-May-2006, "Drummond" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> I haven't been with them long - the speed is abysmal, the sales staff *very*
> cagey about the amount of bandwidth restriction taking place, and tech
> support appear to be soundly asleep, or dead.

Yhe problem is that a lot of ISP's don't buy enough upstream bandwidth
to LINX, so at peak times they are saturated, delivered bandwidth restricts
itself. They would rather pay for advertising than improve their service and
customer support.
And of course customer support doesn't see any problems,
they are connected to the backbone.

On Tue, 23 May 2006 20:24:30 +0100, "Drummond"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>...that can be the only explanation for me waiting in a call queue for their
>tech support for 32 minutes! - and, no, I didn't get through in the end, I
>just gave up.
>
>I haven't been with them long - the speed is abysmal, the sales staff *very*
>cagey about the amount of bandwidth restriction taking place, and tech
>support appear to be soundly asleep, or dead.

http://www.eclipse.net.uk/index.cfm?id=openoutages

Outage Ticket: 2955 OPEN
Outage Date: 22 May 2006 at 14:47:36
Affecting: Other Services, see details.
Description: ADSL Performance
Details: 22 May 2006 at 14:48:12
Some customers may be experiencing an issue with the performance of
their Internet connection when using file sharing applications.
Eclipse engineers are currently investigating the traffic management
system recently implemented to isolate and resolve the issue. Eclipse
apologises for any inconvenience caused.


--

Joe Chip

(E-Mail Removed)

We Can Remember It For You, Inc.

"Joe Chip" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Tue, 23 May 2006 20:24:30 +0100, "Drummond"
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>...that can be the only explanation for me waiting in a call queue for
>>their
>>tech support for 32 minutes! - and, no, I didn't get through in the end, I
>>just gave up.
>>
>>I haven't been with them long - the speed is abysmal, the sales staff
>>*very*
>>cagey about the amount of bandwidth restriction taking place, and tech
>>support appear to be soundly asleep, or dead.
>
> http://www.eclipse.net.uk/index.cfm?id=openoutages
>
> Outage Ticket: 2955 OPEN
> Outage Date: 22 May 2006 at 14:47:36
> Affecting: Other Services, see details.
> Description: ADSL Performance
> Details: 22 May 2006 at 14:48:12
> Some customers may be experiencing an issue with the performance of
> their Internet connection when using file sharing applications.
> Eclipse engineers are currently investigating the traffic management
> system recently implemented to isolate and resolve the issue. Eclipse
> apologises for any inconvenience caused.


Thanks, saw that advisory last night - shouldn't affect me because I'm not
file sharing. I hadn't noticed the bit about 'traffic management', perhaps
that explains my super-doopa 46KB/s speed? they're throttling my connection
to death.

"Drummond" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:mPqdndogD-(E-Mail Removed)...
> ...that can be the only explanation for me waiting in a call queue for
> their tech support for 32 minutes! - and, no, I didn't get through in the
> end, I just gave up.
>
> I haven't been with them long - the speed is abysmal, the sales staff
> *very* cagey about the amount of bandwidth restriction taking place, and
> tech support appear to be soundly asleep, or dead.
>
> I need a MAC, I think - any suggestions for a decent ISP?
>
>

That's nothing
Someone I know was on the phone to BT Broadband in a queue for over 2 hours
some time last week

"Nicola Redwood" <nicolaexternal-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:t4SdndyAv-(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> "Drummond" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:mPqdndogD-(E-Mail Removed)...
>> ...that can be the only explanation for me waiting in a call queue for
>> their tech support for 32 minutes! - and, no, I didn't get through in the
>> end, I just gave up.
>>
>> I haven't been with them long - the speed is abysmal, the sales staff
>> *very* cagey about the amount of bandwidth restriction taking place, and
>> tech support appear to be soundly asleep, or dead.
>>
>> I need a MAC, I think - any suggestions for a decent ISP?
>>
>>
>
> That's nothing
> Someone I know was on the phone to BT Broadband in a queue for over 2
> hours some time last week



Ouch! presumably, they were youngish? - with low blood pressure?

As you get older you realise that some things are not worth dying for

"Nicola Redwood" <nicolaexternal-(E-Mail Removed)> writes:
> "Drummond" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:mPqdndogD-(E-Mail Removed)...
>> ...that can be the only explanation for me waiting in a call queue for
>> their tech support for 32 minutes! - and, no, I didn't get through in the
>> end, I just gave up.
>>
>> I haven't been with them long - the speed is abysmal, the sales staff
>> *very* cagey about the amount of bandwidth restriction taking place, and
>> tech support appear to be soundly asleep, or dead.
>>
>> I need a MAC, I think - any suggestions for a decent ISP?
>
> That's nothing
> Someone I know was on the phone to BT Broadband in a queue for over 2 hours
> some time last week

I knew a chap once, stuck on the phone to *cough splutter mumble*, in the desert,
without food or water, being preyed upon by scorpions, for NINETY THOUSAND YEARS.

R.

> Yhe problem is that a lot of ISP's don't buy enough upstream bandwidth
> to LINX, so at peak times they are saturated, delivered bandwidth
> restricts
> itself.

What on earth are you talking about. You don't buy upstream bandwidth to
Linx you peer at Linx
Linx is a peering point where ISP's exchange traffic, 100mbit is minimum,
most are 1000mbit or more and I doubt any ISP would ever get network
congestion because of capacity at Linx.

DSL services are delivered over BT Central pipes which connect the BT
network to the ISP's network, in most cases the ISP's congestion is at the
BT central because they overload that part of the network. (The BT central
is the most expensive part of the DSL system, hence the reason for it to be
overloaded)

JL

On 24-May-2006, "John Lyons" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> Linx is a peering point where ISP's exchange traffic, 100mbit is minimum,
> most are 1000mbit or more and I doubt any ISP would ever get network
> congestion because of capacity at Linx.

I didn't claim the problem was at LINX, but rather insufficient bandwidth
to cover peak (evening) demand between LINX and the ISP.

It's very noticeable if you are running P2P, during the evening, very
slow but after midnight (2 - 6am) when both the US and the UK
are fast asleep (except the gambling and game addicts) it goes like
stink.
Same applies to other streaming services. Shades of the
Madonna concert live, everybody seemed to be streaming it.