2017-11-30

Christmas is coming?

I thought I'd update a bit on some of the work at A&A over the next month...

Talk Talk backhaul

As I mentioned recently, there have been issues. It is only some parts of their network, but it is not what we want. The good news is progress is being made on their new network and they are working closely with us to test before it can go live. I am very keen for customers to be switched over to this new network before Christmas, well, as soon as we can. The issues have been quite complex and Juniper engineers are on the case with Talk Talk. On our side we are helping in any way we can with test lines and packet dumps, and even making LNS code changes to test ideas and work arounds. This is one advantage of making our own routers with FireBrick...

BT backhaul

The BT backhaul is no issue, but we are extending the capacity for the future. This is making a lot of progress, though today I heard BT have a delay as they don't have any patch cables. We literally pointed them to www.shop.bt.com and suggested they buy some! It will take a while to have the new links up and running as there is a lot more work than just a few patch cables. But that should be soon, and before Christmas. This work is what is holding off some of the new tariff options we are working on.

New SVG graphs

We are updating our systems to some new SVG based usage graphs, as I have blogged. That is going to take a few weeks to fully roll out and set up user options and fine tune. We are keen to ensure customers can see how well their service works, with no sugar coating. The new graphs provide more detail than before, and should be clearer.

Christmas cover

We will, of course, ensure cover for normal non bank holidays over Christmas, but we should be able to confirm the cover for other days as we normally work Saturdays as well. I'll make sure we do some sort of announcement. This year makes it a bit simpler as no arguments with BT as to whether a 25th Dec on a Saturday or a Sunday is a bank holiday or not (it is not). As always, there will be some informal out of hours support and emergency support for major issues. Those few customers still on our old "units" tariffs still get the Christmas week as off-peak as well as bank and public holidays.

2 comments:

  1. Hmmm. Speaking of the old "units" tariff, I note a few references to it still linger on the AA website.

    http://www.aaisp.net.uk/domains-emailhigh.html
    "Light usage email services cost £1.20 pcm, or is free with your broadband service."

    http://www.aaisp.net.uk/kb-broadband-bh.html
    "Broadband usage is metered differently at different times of day and days of week"
    linking to
    http://www.aaisp.net.uk/broadband-units.html

    and so on and so forth.

    Must be the ghost of Christmas Past ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm using the older units-based tariff and I love it. Please don't get rid of it or deprecate it. It works out well for me with a lot of slow lines bonded and I love being able to take serious advantage of the overnight very cheap rate period. I need lots of lines, but that doesn't mean that usage needs to change - it's not more lines for more humans, it's because the lines are slow and so I need more of them.

    ReplyDelete

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