Schoolsbroadband issues - filter 11

[fiza]

Hi @fiza,

 

I suspect it's because your own school isn't using us yet. If you email [email protected] then she'll get you added to the notification lists.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

 

Dave I did that earlier in the day. Haven't receive any response yet. I have also just registered for the portal.

[SchoolsBroadband]

Dave I did that earlier in the day. Haven't receive any response yet. I have also just registered for the portal.

 

You will do @fiza. As I'm sure you'll appreciate ticket numbers are rather high at the moment. Can you PM me your email address and I'll get someone else to do it for you if you want them sooner?

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[whs1000]

The school have phones and broadband through SB

 

Thank you, we were told by Schools Broadband that SIP is vlaned off via a different route so would not have been affected by the current issues if we were with them for SIP - I will have to double check this

[SchoolsBroadband]

Thank you, we were told by Schools Broadband that SIP is vlaned off via a different route so would not have been affected by the current issues if we were with them for SIP - I will have to double check this

 

Hi @whs1000,

 

this isn't done by default but is something we can do if required. We supply some schools with a completely separate broadband line from an alternate carrier for VoIP in case their is ever an issue with their primary connection.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[whs1000]

Anybody else have issues overnight or just me ? Services went down at around 11PM last night and didnt come back online until this morning at 7.30am when I rang Schools Broadband, it was pretty much sorted straight away so may just have been someone turned off the wrong switch last night...

[nathan]

Anybody else have issues overnight or just me ? Services went down at around 11PM last night and didnt come back online until this morning at 7.30am when I rang Schools Broadband, it was pretty much sorted straight away so may just have been someone turned off the wrong switch last night...

 

you sure it wasn't planned maintenance?

[whs1000]

you sure it wasn't planned maintenance?

 

I did not receive any info about planned maintenance but just received an email saying that we have been manually failed over to another lightspeed child as something wrong with the one we were on

[round2it]

wow , glad I didn't move now

[tj2419]

Ours has been fine for the last few days now.

[nathan]

wow , glad I didn't move now

 

It will hopefully only be a blip, they are normally pretty good.

[SchoolsBroadband]

on the whole we've got to the bottom of the issue and are working with Lightspeed. We've added a lot more server resource to increase capacity (not that we were under capacity to start off with) so you'll all see an improvement. Last night one server has been semi taken off line as we've managed to get it in a certain state where we've seen the issues but Lightspeed can still get onto the unit.

 

Lot's of work to do still but we don't see the issues happening as they have going forward hence stability for the vast majority of customers.

 

Thanks for your patience and we'll keep you all updated.

 

Dave

[Wubbalubbadub]

Hey all! I'm due to go live with schools broadband, next Tuesday! If I'm honest in bricking it! I'v convinced SLT that it was a good move.. From RM broadband! But I'v been watching these threads for a while now and from what I can understand Schools broadband are going to shit at the moment... I'v had ex- work colleagues phoning me telling me to find another supplier and quickly! My RM line doesn't de-activate for a while so I do have the option of "jumping ship" as it were!?

[SchoolsBroadband]

Well proof will be how we are after Tuesday @MJTayloronline

 

The vast majority of customers haven't had any problems whatsoever and any issue that was with filter 11 has now been fixed as everything has been rock solid for the past week. Although a few customers have had a rough ride due to filter 11 issues the vast majority still have not and are very happy with our service.

 

Feel free to PM me or give me a call if you've any concerns specifically.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[whs1000]

Unfortunately my views of Schools Broadband atm are not great, we did all the research and got feedback from alot of schools and it all sounded great but from install to now has been a nightmare - we got moved from filter 11 eventually and it has been better for the last week but not "rock solid" on our connection every now and then packets are dropped for about 30-40 seconds which doesn't sound alot but is enough time for students/staff to come see us and say internet is down, teachers inputting grades on websites, if they click the save button when the line is down they then have to re-type everything back in as it times out, phone calls will be dropped or scrambled if on SIP.

 

Since the move the filtering report emails are no longer working so I am having to manually screenshot reports and email them to the relevant people for PREVENT and suspicious queries but still waiting on this to be fixed.

 

Dave keeps saying the "vast majority of customers" have been fine but I dont care about the other customers being OK, I only care about our schools service.

[Blue_Cookeh]

Hey all! I'm due to go live with schools broadband, next Tuesday! If I'm honest in bricking it! I'v convinced SLT that it was a good move.. From RM broadband! But I'v been watching these threads for a while now and from what I can understand Schools broadband are going to shit at the moment... I'v had ex- work colleagues phoning me telling me to find another supplier and quickly! My RM line doesn't de-activate for a while so I do have the option of "jumping ship" as it were!?

 

Well proof will be how we are after Tuesday @MJTayloronline

 

The vast majority of customers haven't had any problems whatsoever and any issue that was with filter 11 has now been fixed as everything has been rock solid for the past week. Although a few customers have had a rough ride due to filter 11 issues the vast majority still have not and are very happy with our service.

 

Feel free to PM me or give me a call if you've any concerns specifically.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

 

No company is exempt from the occasional blip, and as annoyed as our school was with the poor service just after signing up, SB did seem to be working hard to fix the issues. Ever since they implemented the final fix (last week, or week before?) our connection was back to being rock solid as it was when first installed.

 

Also their communication during these outages were pretty much second to none. Every time it happened on a different day and we went to call support they already had a message on their auto attendant, and once we were on the mailing list we had updates every couple of hours about any issues that were going on, not just our own.

 

A bumpy start for us, but I think I would still recommend them.

Edited May 23, 2016 by Blue_Cookeh

[SchoolsBroadband]

Unfortunately my views of Schools Broadband atm are not great, we did all the research and got feedback from alot of schools and it all sounded great but from install to now has been a nightmare - we got moved from filter 11 eventually and it has been better for the last week but not "rock solid" on our connection every now and then packets are dropped for about 30-40 seconds which doesn't sound alot but is enough time for students/staff to come see us and say internet is down, teachers inputting grades on websites, if they click the save button when the line is down they then have to re-type everything back in as it times out, phone calls will be dropped or scrambled if on SIP.

 

Since the move the filtering report emails are no longer working so I am having to manually screenshot reports and email them to the relevant people for PREVENT and suspicious queries but still waiting on this to be fixed.

 

Dave keeps saying the "vast majority of customers" have been fine but I dont care about the other customers being OK, I only care about our schools service.

 

Hello again,

 

I'm away for the week at the moment but have forwarded this onto another director so we get back in touch and sort these issues out for you. Moving over to different filter clusters can be a bit of a pain as there's lots of work to re do but we will get it sorted for you.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[SchoolsBroadband]

No company is exempt from the occasional blip, and as annoyed as our school was with the poor service just after signing up, SB did seem to be working hard to fix the issues. Ever since they implemented the final fix (last week, or week before?) our connection was back to being rock solid as it was when first installed.

 

Also their communication during these outages were pretty much second to none. Every time it happened on a different day and we went to call support they already had a message on their auto attendant, and once we were on the mailing list we had updates every couple of hours about any issues that were going on, not just our own.

 

A bumpy start for us, but I think I would still recommend them.

 

Thanks for the positive feedback. Our stance on issues has always been to be as upfront and honest about everything and not just push them under the carpet'. Glad to hear you're now back to normal and happy with the service since we've done all the extra work for filter 11 customers.

 

Dave

[Homer3334]

Honestly, been with SB for nearly 4 years. Support has been great for us, changeovers and installs have always been simple and problem free.

 

Any changes we need to make they do them over the phone or I can make them, which is very helpful for us. The firewall is flexible and the Internet fast.

 

The recent outages are a small blemish on an otherwise outstanding record for us. We were the only school in our entire County to move from Lea broadband so you can imagine how nerve wrecking that was for us (especially since the Lea had no experience connecting to schools not on their broadband, they couldn't tell us what would happen) and it's been a big success. The challenges we came up against where sorted well and got over every hurdle. Although the first days of changeover I felt the same as you. Don't worry I would say your in good hands.

[synaesthesia]

We're still in the "unsure" category, currently. It's a matter of rebuilding trust though, even by their own admission they will need to work hard to regain that trust. We're as unhappy as everyone else, and from the start of the filter issues I've been questioning the setup; had SB ballsed up their clustering/config or was Lightspeed to blame?

Had their lead techy guy call us on Friday to go through what happened, what they had to do etc and he was very genuine and apologetic about it. He made it clear that the majority of the issue was down to Lightspeed and the loads being placed on them; that shouldn't be a problem however Lightspeed had apparently been moving the goalposts somewhat. When they first started teaming up with LS for filtering, LS promised the machines would be able to handle a load percentage, and further down the line (now) they've dropped those figures considerably.

That's a very abridged version of what we were told; I'm sure SB will be happy to go into more detail if required.

We have no reason to believe there's anything more to it, we have generally been happy with SB's actual line and customer service.

Could we recommend them? For the line and service, yes. For the lightspeed filtering... hard to say, that'll come with building up trust over time again.

[tj2419]

I have to say, as the person that started this thread.

 

It was frustrating when the issues were happening. But I feel schoolsbroadband could have done very little more to try and mitigate it. They have been very honest with us, they have been working on various solutions, they came out to see us onsite and explain the issues and what has been put in place. Companies that will go to that extent and go out to schools willingly where they know they will face a lot of anger takes a lot. We all have times in work where things go wrong and it is how you deal with it that matters.

 

Yes it was a massive issue but I think they have dealt with it well and at the end of the day they don't want to be in this position as much as we don't. Plus things seem to be back to normal for us. We bought into this service so we don't have to deal with issues like this and I can only imagine it would have gone on much longer and been more expensive if I had, had to deal with this issue with onsite equipment for my own school. At times like this I am grateful I can say "it's not me and they are working on it".

[Wubbalubbadub]

I have to say, as the person that started this thread.

 

It was frustrating when the issues were happening. But I feel schoolsbroadband could have done very little more to try and mitigate it. They have been very honest with us, they have been working on various solutions, they came out to see us onsite and explain the issues and what has been put in place. Companies that will go to that extent and go out to schools willingly where they know they will face a lot of anger takes a lot. We all have times in work where things go wrong and it is how you deal with it that matters.

 

Yes it was a massive issue but I think they have dealt with it well and at the end of the day they don't want to be in this position as much as we don't. Plus things seem to be back to normal for us. We bought into this service so we don't have to deal with issues like this and I can only imagine it would have gone on much longer and been more expensive if I had, had to deal with this issue with onsite equipment for my own school. At times like this I am grateful I can say "it's not me and they are working on it".

 

I'll go on a limb here and say that if it was your own on-site lightspeed, you wouldn't of had any issues..

 

In fact, i have my own lightspeed unit currently and we didn't have a single blip!

 

That being said! I take your other points!

 

Am expecting a call from someone today to tell me what happened & ill make my decision then.

 

Matt