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Forum Index : Site News : What’s Happened!

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Gizmo

Admin Group

Joined: 05/06/2004
Location: Australia
Posts: 5078
Posted: 09:24am 07 Jul 2011
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OK, as some of you may have noticed, we've been having some technical difficulties.

Yesterday morning my local Telstra telephone exhange had a meltdown, and all the phones and internet services in my area are dead. As this web site and forum lives on a PC at my home office, it went offline. To make matters worse, today we lost power for a few hours, was like living in the 1900's! At least the water was still running.

So, I've fired up a copy of the web site and forum at its old location, an ISP in Mackay north Queensland. What you are seeing is a snapshot of the web site and forum from a couple of weeks ago before I moved everything to my place.

Now my only internet access is through my iphone, which I'm using to type this message. Unfortunately I can not upload the forum database to the old server, so instead I have locked all forums to stop anyone posting a message. Otherwise we would end up with two databases that would be out of sync.

So take a break from posting, and have a read around instead. There's a heap of stuff here going back years, worth a look.

I've been told the service will be back up tomorrow, but I've learned to not trust anything Telstra say.

Glenn



The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now.
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Gizmo

Admin Group

Joined: 05/06/2004
Location: Australia
Posts: 5078
Posted: 09:31am 07 Jul 2011
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OK as expected, Telstra have let us down again and extended the restoration date to NEXT WEDNESDAY!!!!!

Considering I'm on a business line which is supposed to be repaired with 24 hours, I'm pretty pissed!

Anyway, I've taken a copy of the forum database and images to my Dads place and used his internet to update the old server in Mackay.

So you can now access the forum posts up to the time the lines when down, Tuesday morning. And I've enabled message posting, so you can once again post messages, etc. I have however disabled email notify, new registrations, and image/file uploads for a short time until I can restore internet to my home office. Once I get my connection back up, I'll transfer the database back, so no message posted will be lost. I take data integrity very seriously.

I still have no email services at this time, and very limited internet access.

Yes, I will be ditching Telstra as soon as I can.

Glenn


The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now.
JAQ
 
sparkey

Senior Member

Joined: 15/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 819
Posted: 10:56am 07 Jul 2011
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good work glenn as i speak for many but seldom few
technicians do it with least resistance
 
vawtwindy

Newbie

Joined: 23/10/2010
Location: India
Posts: 31
Posted: 11:11am 07 Jul 2011
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honestly "Nice Efforts" Glenn.
 
stuarts

Senior Member

Joined: 15/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 199
Posted: 11:24am 07 Jul 2011
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Many thanks for your efforts. The thing that amazes me is that I can find no reference to this failure on the web. You'd think Tel$tra didn't want anyone to know about it.

Stuart
Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once.
 
sparkey

Senior Member

Joined: 15/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 819
Posted: 11:39am 07 Jul 2011
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telsra wont say boo but the money we spend on services u would think that it was put to use ...regards sparkey and thanks glenn
technicians do it with least resistance
 
Gizmo

Admin Group

Joined: 05/06/2004
Location: Australia
Posts: 5078
Posted: 12:42pm 07 Jul 2011
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Yeah I cant make sense of their outages pages either.

Tuesday morning about 8:40 the connection dropped. Phones dead too. I called Telstra on my mobile to log a fault. Ended up taling to some Philipino call center. They did some line tests and said the readings didn't make sense, but would get a technician to look into it. I then started testing lines myself all the way to the entry point into the building, dead as a door nail. Then at 1pm I get a text message from them to say it was a "network outage affecting the area" and the service should be restored by 7pm Wednesday the 6th. I went and spoke to a few people on my street, their phones and internet were dead too, so it wasn't just me. Later that day I called Telstra and they told me a part had been ordered to repair the phone exchange(?!), and service would be restored by 7pm Thursday the 7th. This afternoon ( Thursday ) I phoned them again to get a progress report, and they told me the part have been fitted, but didn't fix the problem. It now looks like a damaged cable. Service would be restored on Wednesday the 13th.

By this time I was pretty angry. I'm on a business plan, and should have the service restored within hours, not 8 days!

I called the business account department and got through to an Australian call center, where the operator told me the latest update is it was a cable fault, and a cable specialist will be there in the morning to have a look. He also told me where the cable damage was, about 2 blocks away from my place. So I went for a walk, and found the sidewalk all dug up with barricades around. So tomorrow morning I'll be going for another walk to see if I can catch the Telstra linesmen there and "express" my feelings of love and joy towards their company.

I suspect it will get fixed tomorrow, but I wouldn't put money on it.

What really sh_t's me is how much Telstra has gone to the dogs. See I once worked for them, when they were called Telecom, a government department. Back then, all we did was maintenance and installation. The Telecom network was regarded as the 4th best in the world internationally. The network was very reliable, and we had spares for everything. As a government service we had a responsibility to the comunity.

But then it got sold. Shares and profit margins. There is no profit in spare parts or maintanance. When I started working in Mackay we had 70 technicians in the exchanges and radio departments. Now there are 5, the rest were made redundant, including me.

If a cable was cut, we had linesmen working on it all day and night until it was fixed. If there was an exchange fault, someone, including me on a couple of occasions, was called up in the middle of the night to go in and sort it out. These days, then need to get in a "specialist" to fix a 40 year old cable.

Telstra has gone from one of the worlds best to nothing more than an embasasment. And if you own shares in Telstra, your part of the problem.

Glenn
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now.
JAQ
 
Rastus

Guru

Joined: 29/10/2010
Location: Australia
Posts: 301
Posted: 03:10pm 07 Jul 2011
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Hi Glenn,
Keeping us informed certainly strengthens the feeling of community the thread promotes.Most of us would be looking into it to check they aren't just giving of pat exscuses to fob us off.Actually finding the problem close to home is a real jem.A real sherlock Holmes deduction,on less details than telstra should have at there finger tips.Bad publicity works better than giving a servicemen a serve,but we do know how you feel.Thanks again for your prompt action to keep our addiction satisfied.Cheers Rastus
see Rastus graduate advise generously
 
donmck

Guru

Joined: 09/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 1313
Posted: 04:22pm 07 Jul 2011
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What?
They have changed their name?
When I worked there it was the PMG :-)

Can only endorse what everybody else has said. Thanks very much Glenn. I know you still have a bit of work ahead to get it sorted.

I posted your message on the front page at:
http://www.themaximitecomputer.com/

I guess it can be removed now.

Speaking of Telstra, my eldest daughter is in Palmerson, a southern suburb of Darwin.

and they have been down since 11:40 yesterday:

http://advisories.internode.on.net/item/8798/

[code]
As of the 07/07/2011 at 11:40 ACST, our Wholesale Provider has confirmed that there
is a fault condition affecting ADSL services across multiple exchanges in the
Northern Territory. Technicians are investigating this issue with no ETA currently
available. Further information will be provided in the next scheduled update on the
07/07/2011 before 17:00 ACST.

UPDATE: 07/07/2011 16:05 ACST:
Our Wholesale Provider has advised us that no new updates are available at this
time. More information will be provided in the next scheduled update on 08/07/2011
before 10:00 ACST.
[/code]

My granddaughter works at the shopping centre at Palmerston also, and her business has been down along with every other business in the area. No Eftpos, no registers, nothing.

My daughter contacted me by phone using Skype, and I have been giveing her updates.
She runs an internet based business from home, so I have two of the family out of a job.

There is nothing in any news report about this outage. The PMG, errr.... Tel$tra has really gone to the dogs.

Cheers Don...

https://www.dontronics.com
 
sparkey

Senior Member

Joined: 15/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 819
Posted: 04:35pm 07 Jul 2011
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i dont know if it is the posts i have written or the questions i have replied to .or any other matter or even how much devotion i have for this foroum but i thank you for the up grade as i do try my best to help others ..its not about money or even stand point of status its how u contribuite to the cause that matters...regards sparkey
technicians do it with least resistance
 
sparkey

Senior Member

Joined: 15/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 819
Posted: 05:38pm 07 Jul 2011
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glenn its good to see that the site is up again i really look foward to the input from others help is always an advantage...rergards sparkey
technicians do it with least resistance
 
sparkey

Senior Member

Joined: 15/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 819
Posted: 11:51pm 07 Jul 2011
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dom my unckle also worked for the pmg when melbourne was powerd by dc voltage "laurrie.r.....
technicians do it with least resistance
 
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