broadband – Holland Numerics: Blog and Forums

Have you missed me? I think my blog site is back. Let me explain…

On Thursday (13Feb2025) my broadband connection was upgraded from copper wire to full fibre, but it could not be tested, because my router was not compatible.

I reconfigured my router to temporarily go back to my copper wire connection, but, even though my internet service provider (ISP) had agreed to send me a suitable router, they still shut down that line, because the full fibre installation had been completed.

The new router arrived at breakfast time on Friday (14Feb2025), but we did not hear the doorbell, because it relies on WiFi, which had been disabled! Only a chance look out of the window revealed a very patient postman! A very stressful hour followed while I configured the new router ready to restart the blog server, reinstated the internet and WiFi connections, and connect the new web phone, as I needed to work on a client’s server that day. Later in the day my ISP sent me a message that my router was on its way to me!?

My ISP’s support teams are very friendly and helpful, but I am certain they would be less busy if they completed tasks correctly at the first attempt! Friday afternoon was punctuated with online chat discussions with them about access to their business portal to update the web phone settings, which have now been resolved.

My penultimate discussion with my ISP resulted from some access issues to the blog server. In order to assign a web address to the server’s IP address it has to be static, which had been ordered as part of the upgrade package. Mid-afternoon the web address stopped working, which suggested the IP address I had assigned to the web address was dynamic, rather than static. I assigned the new IP address to the web address and, so far, it has not changed again, but my ISP has not yet confirmed that it is now static, which is why I said that I think my blog site is back.

Finally on Monday (17Feb2025) I had a very fruitful conversation with my ISP’s Tech Support, who understood me immediately and finally set my IP address to a static IP address, which worked after I had rebooted my router. This was a revelation, as my previous contacts with Tech Support had been convoluted and ultimately unsuccessful. Therefore, I have spent the day rooting out the occurrences of the old IP address from my WordPress configuration. I am hoping that members of this blog will now be able to interact with it again!

Recommendation: If you have a working server connected to a specific static IP address, DO NOT change it!!

Scheduled downtime: broadband upgrade on Thursday 13 February 2025

There will be a scheduled downtime of the blog site on Thursday 13 February 2025 while the broadband connection is upgraded to full fibre. The upgrade work is due to take place between 0800hr and 1300hr (GMT), but the downtime may extend beyond this period to allow for any amendments to server connections that are also needed.

A message will be sent to Twitter/X, LinkedIn, BlueSky, Mastodon and blog members as soon as the site is fully available after the downtime.

Thank you in advance for your patience!

Apologies for the blog #outage due to #Plusnet and #BT #OpenReach

Apologies for the blog outage due to Plusnet and BT OpenReach that shut my blog site down for nearly 2 days from 17Nov2020 until 19Nov2020. I created this blog site back in October 2016 and have had Plusnet as my broadband internet provider since then, but my broadband connection ceased at 1540 on 17Nov2020 due a “major local outage”. I contacted Plusnet immediately and they assured me that the problem was likely to be resolved overnight. The following morning the outage was still there, and Plusnet passed the problem over to the faults team at BT OpenReach, as Plusnet is owned by BT, and BT OpenReach maintains their broadband network. That was the last time I heard anything from Plusnet, and I’m still waiting to hear from BT OpenReach. I’m now looking for a replacement broadband internet provider, so that I can reliably:

work with my clients.
reconnect my blog site.
start using my “free” WiFi, instead of my mobile data allocation.

Stop Press: As you can now see, my broadband connection has just been restored after being disconnected for 42 hours, but I’m still investigating replacements!

If anyone asks me for a recommendation for internet and mobile phone contract providers, I can give them a growing list of “do not contact” companies:

Vodafone – they disconnected my mobile phone while I was discussing my phone contract with them on a landline, and you can wait for hours on their support lines.
Plusnet – while they will tell you that their customer service is wonderful, their broadband service depends heavily on BT OpenReach.
BT OpenReach – don’t use any company that relies on them, because they have one of the worst customer services in the UK!

After a period of instability my SAS blog should have more availability, and may be quicker too!

Following my SAS blog server crash in September I have experienced occasional access interruptions from a few minutes to several hours since then. There have been various reasons for the down time, including WordPress plugin updates causing incompatibilities, server software updates, accidental disconnecting of the router, and my internet service provider temporarily interrupting their service to me.

To correct the last problem I decided to change my broadband connection from ADSL to a “Superfast” fibre, which meant changing my provider. This has now been completed, but the changeover process did more than change my internet service provider. While running the two broadband connections in parallel I discovered some issues in the setup of the network gateway, which had itself caused a number of interruptions. I can’t guarantee that there won’t be more short interruptions in the future, as I’m in the process of reorganising the cabling in my office, but I wanted to assure everyone that, if you have difficulty connecting, then wait a short while before trying again, as I will be back, and the blog could be quicker too!