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

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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!

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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!