Schools Broadband issues

[winng]

Especially when we're trying to promote use of cloud services, I.e. Google Classroom, Drive, etc. to free up storage space and make everything available anytime, anywhere...

[Blue_Cookeh]

Yes, I'll be kicking up a fuss about this once I can actually get through on the phones.

 

We rely on our connection for just about everything nowadays, the biggest thing being Office365 and Integris MIS. Not only is this downtime costing our kids' education time, it's costing all our admin staff time too.

 

Our backup line with Eclipse Internet has more uptime than this - I'm contemplating putting our Sophos filtering back in place and pushing our traffic over that connection until SB sort their issues out. Not an acceptable solution. At all.

[clockend25]

Filter 5 seems to have dodged almost all of the recent issues. Though now I've said that...

[ful56_uk]

this found this within the management summary we got from schools broadband there is a section that states, “The service we are offering is fully managed, and has a money back service level guarantee of 99.997%, meaning it allows for a maximum of 12 seconds of down time per academic year.”

[winng]

Ours has just come back. Filter17.

So that's three hours downtime today (so far) which is 10,800 seconds so that's 900 years of credit due for today.

[kysumu]

A bit over the 12 second mark, and it hasn't even been half of academic year yet. It is up and running again now, but for how long I don't know. Going to monitor for the rest of the day. This can't keep happening though, as it is too disruptive to a school's working day.

[tj2419]

The problem I am finding is that the downtime recently it for a few minutes or less than an hour. Which is still half or a whole lesson disrupted but not long enough to trigger the SLA compensation.

 

Like most said it's not even the compensation that is important it is the disruption! We need a service that is reliable as it is holding us back roling out G-Suite.

[SchoolsBroadband]

Right,

 

not a good day today for all of you affected. Again it's not been everyone by any means but we do unreservedly apologise.

 

We have had the same issue hit Fortigate 3 that happened last week. Fortigate 3 was swopped out on Friday evening for brand new hardware and up to lunchtime today had not displayed the same symptoms as the old unit.

 

As new hardware has not fixed the issue we've had to take a very hard decision of not immediately rebooting the device to bring customers back up and running as quickly as possible. The reason for this is that we've had to have Fortinet TAC get access to the box remotely to find out what is actually happening in the underlying FortiOS (software version) the Fortigates are running on. If we were to simply reboot the box again then we would lose what the underlying semi-crash condition is and it would likely reoccur in the future.

 

Our NOC engineers are in constant contact with Fortinet TAC in Europe and this has been escalated as high as it possibly can be and is classed as a P1 ticket.

 

We have our theory as to what maybe causing the issue but nevertheless the box should not get into the state it is doing. I highly suspect we will be advised to upgrade to a new version of FortiOS which we will do once Fortinet officially advise which minor upgrade patch that should be.

 

I'll keep you all updated as soon as we have some more news from Fortinet.

 

FYI your SLA is sent to you when you originally signed up to our service and includes how to claim service credits. If you need another copy please do contact your account manager who will send it over to you.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

Edited December 1, 2016 by SchoolsBroadband

[FN-GM]

@SchoolsBroadband I guess you won't let people get out of contracts if they want to leave please?

[SchoolsBroadband]

Correct,

 

we are signed into the same term as the school is with our carriers so can't let people out of contract early.

 

Dave

[ful56_uk]

@SchoolsBroadband what's the notice period?

[SchoolsBroadband]

90 days

[FN-GM]

Correct,

 

we are signed into the same term as the school is with our carriers so can't let people out of contract early.

 

Dave

 

So you provide a terrible service, ruin children's education and schools have to continue to pay for it.?

 

It doesn't matter if its fortinet or whatever in the background thats causing the issues. Schools are pay YOU for a service they are not receiving. The schools did not sign up for this...

 

Its not just this recent spate of problems, customers have been having issues for a long time.

Edited December 1, 2016 by FN-GM

[Edu-IT]

Ruin is a strong word and perhaps not entirely true. I'm not sure SB could be held accountable for that. Impact would be a better word to use.

 

They've installed new hardware, that hasn't worked. Unfortunately they are now reliant on FortiNet to sort this unless they change vendor it seems? It really is a series of unfortunate circumstances but it looks like they're doing all they literally can do at this time.

[SchoolsBroadband]

Thanks for the support @Edu-IT I highly suspect we are going to be rolling out an emergency patch from Fortinet later tonight.

 

Watch this space though we'll keep you updated.

 

Dave

[synaesthesia]

Indeed, and I, like many others have no doubt they are doing all they can under difficult circumstances. However we have to look after the best interests of the school and as has been said this doesn't just impact administration or teaching & learning, in some cases it can have safeguarding consequences too. Who provides the infrastructure is of little consequence to the schools involved, and especially to the layman they have a contract with a company to provide their internet connection and that's all they are interested in. We, as technical staff can only advise so much before the powers that be say (and are saying) "Enough is enough". If a consortium of establishments approached legal representation again a company, those details and the SLA will mean absolutely squat.

[nikaso]

.....We, as technical staff can only advise so much before the powers that be say (and are saying) "Enough is enough". If a consortium of establishments approached legal representation again a company, those details and the SLA will mean absolutely squat....

 

This member of technical staff is having a meeting with their account manager on Monday to discuss the contract especially in light of the fourth/fifth outage in the last two weeks (and several others in the previous months). I'm quite sure SB are doing all they can to resolve the issue but ultimately I know NMs at other schools with different ISPs who virtually never have outages (and pay less for their line to boot).

 

Teachers are extremely frustrated when lessons basically have to be shelved because of the loss of internet connectivity and when you have a hosted financial platform (with payroll deadline today) you also have admin staff ready to go into meltdown.

[FN-GM]

Ruin is a strong word and perhaps not entirely true. I'm not sure SB could be held accountable for that. Impact would be a better word to use.

 

They've installed new hardware, that hasn't worked. Unfortunately they are now reliant on FortiNet to sort this unless they change vendor it seems? It really is a series of unfortunate circumstances but it looks like they're doing all they literally can do at this time.

 

It is a strong word and suitable for this situation. The school has had a poor service since installation 12 months ago. You will never get that education time back.

 

I don't care what the fault is, we just want what we paid (a fortune as well) for. (or infact what all of us pay for as tax payers)

Edited December 1, 2016 by FN-GM

[Primus]

I like how they've been talking about the availability of a firmware upgrade that *might* resolve this issue for sometime now but don't want to install it in case it makes the situation worse - how much worse could it possibly be?!

 

Also that a major company like this don't have any test platforms to test said firmware upgrade on seems pretty poor.

 

If you really wanted to do the right thing while you fixed your gigantic problems you'd let schools leave their contracts without penalty. Otherwise your reputation is taking a further hammering and I would never ever deal with your company or anyone related to your company as a result of this hugely negative, damaging and repeated publicity.

[nathan]

So you provide a terrible service, ruin children's education and schools have to continue to pay for it.?

 

It doesn't matter if its fortinet or whatever in the background thats causing the issues. Schools are pay YOU for a service they are not receiving. The schools did not sign up for this...

 

Its not just this recent spate of problems, customers have been having issues for a long time.

 

Trouble is with that thinking, is where up the line do you place blame?

 

I mean someone could turn around and say you look after the IT in the school and so it's you ruining children's education. Of course that isn't the case, it's the supplier.

 

Hopefully this gets resolved asap. Things were nice and stable before and hopefully they can get it back to there.

[nathan]

No offence, but how can you be so sure of all these comments when you don't actually use the service? They are installing the firmware based on the recommendations of the supplier.

 

Trouble is letting schools leave early without penalty could easily bankrupt a company there for putting the rest of the schools at a loss, the schools that haven't suffered.

 

Can I ask why you are so invested in schools broadband? You seem to comment on them an awful lot without actually using their service? Do or have you worked for a competitor?

[FN-GM]

I mean someone could turn around and say you look after the IT in the school and so it's you ruining children's education. Of course that isn't the case, it's the supplier.

 

I agree to an extent. If someone doesn't do their homework and choose a company and get egg on their face they play a big part in the problem.

 

No offence, but how can you be so sure of all these comments when you don't actually use the service? They are installing the firmware based on the recommendations of the supplier.

 

Trouble is letting schools leave early without penalty could easily bankrupt a company there for putting the rest of the schools at a loss, the schools that haven't suffered.

 

Can I ask why you are so invested in schools broadband? You seem to comment on them an awful lot without actually using their service? Do or have you worked for a competitor?

 

Who are you talking to please? If it's me one of our schools is a customer.

Edited December 1, 2016 by FN-GM

[Primus]

He's talking to me I presume FN-GM.

 

No offence nathan but why are you defending Schools Broadband so vociferously?

 

They have said on here on several occasions over these issues that a firmware update is pending but they don't want to install it yet as it may cause further issues.

 

If they can't deliver on their promises then they should do the honourable thing.

 

I'm not invested, I just hate to see other schools and colleagues placed in such a position by gross incompetence of a supplier.

[Primus]

Oh and no, aside from a brief spell during my uni summer holidays when I worked for NTL in their consumer division, I have never worked for a competitor of Schools Broadband!

 

Read my posting history, it's obvious I'm not working for a competitor!

[FN-GM]

I agree with @Primus

 

We have test kit and test updates etc before they are released into the wild. Im also very fussy on how things work. Some people say im OTT but Its all for the end user experience and at the end of the day that is our job.