Schools Broadband Internet Issues

[sigma]

15 minutes ago, psydii said:

I feel that there are parallels here with Bromcom. They both promise too much to too many, trip themselves up and frustrate everybody. SB and Bromcom both appeal to *me* with the flexibly and control they offer, yet here I sit on LGfL and SIMS because I need to be able to sleep at night.

Having had a completely torrid year with SBB during the last academic year, I cannot speak highly enough of the service we have had from LGfl since September.    As far as Netsweeper is concered, there is nothing to be gained from SB's setup compared to LGfl overall. 

 

 

[JazzFlute]

just updating that issue still not resolved and its been up and down all day with slow speeds when the internet is working.

[Frodo_Baggins]

Issues again this morning, last note on the portal was that they spent all of yesterday trying to find the issue and couldn't and were going to monitor today - hopefully the right people are looking at the issue and they fix it soon 😐

[JazzFlute]

41 minutes ago, Frodo_Baggins said:

Issues again this morning, last note on the portal was that they spent all of yesterday trying to find the issue and couldn't and were going to monitor today - hopefully the right people are looking at the issue and they fix it soon 😐

 

Yeah same again today as last 2 days.  Done some troubleshooting for them and hopefully they'll find a fix today but Internet came back up quicker today and hopefully fingers crossed will be stable for the rest of the day then fingers crossed for in the morning again..

[Frodo_Baggins]

3rd day in and still having issues ☹️

[JDawgg]

Further issues this morning. 

Every morning this week at around the same time seem to experience service degradation so far this week. 

Too many teachers trying to access the registers at once!!!

[JazzFlute]

4 minutes ago, JDawgg said:

Further issues this morning. 

Every morning this week at around the same time seem to experience service degradation so far this week. 

Too many teachers trying to access the registers at once!!!

Yes, it happens at the same time every day, with degraded service continuing throughout the day. Most schools now rely on VoIP, so when the connection drops it significantly affects the running of the school and communication with parents. Previously, when the issue was just “no internet,” there were sometimes workarounds in classrooms. Now that the phones also go down, it has become a much larger and more disruptive problem.

 

Surely i would have thought they knew what changes they made in the Easter hols to either roll back or identify quickly which change they made that is the problem but obviously not as 4 days on the trot now experiencing the same issues.

[Stephen_SchoolsBroadband]

Hi all,

 

I wanted to share a quick update following some reports of slow or interrupted internet access. Since schools returned from the holidays and usage increased, a small number of customers have noticed reduced performance at certain points during the day. This hasn’t affected everyone at the same time, but there have been brief issues during busy periods such as the start and end of the school day. Outside of these peak times, services are generally running more smoothly.

 

This issue is limited to a specific group of customers on one part of our network, with many others unaffected and continuing to receive a normal service. Our engineering teams are actively investigating and working through the remaining areas of concern, with this being treated as a high priority and overseen at a senior level. Work is ongoing to ensure services are stable and reliable, and we’ll continue to share updates.

 

If you’ve got any questions feel free to drop a reply here or message me directly and I’ll be happy to help.

 

Thanks

Stephen
 

Stephen Woodward | Technical Account Manager

Schools Broadband

E: stephen.woodward@talk-straight.com

M: 07526 566 588

[JazzFlute]

Same problems again today, everyday since being back after Easter

[JDawgg]

Same here - limited VOIP services and crawling speeds. 

 

[JazzFlute]

There last update last night seemed like a plausible "fix" but obviously not.  5 days of constant fluctuations and downtime at the most busiest/important times for school is not very good at all.

 

No matter how much you try and explain to Headteacher, SLT etc. its the ISP's fault there's still an expectation that we can try and fix it ourselves and we bear the frustration of all staff.

Edited April 17 by JazzFlute

[msi_school]

19 hours ago, Stephen_SchoolsBroadband said:

Hi all,

 

I wanted to share a quick update following some reports of slow or interrupted internet access. Since schools returned from the holidays and usage increased, a small number of customers have noticed reduced performance at certain points during the day. This hasn’t affected everyone at the same time, but there have been brief issues during busy periods such as the start and end of the school day. Outside of these peak times, services are generally running more smoothly.

 

This issue is limited to a specific group of customers on one part of our network, with many others unaffected and continuing to receive a normal service. Our engineering teams are actively investigating and working through the remaining areas of concern, with this being treated as a high priority and overseen at a senior level. Work is ongoing to ensure services are stable and reliable, and we’ll continue to share updates.

 

If you’ve got any questions feel free to drop a reply here or message me directly and I’ll be happy to help.

 

Thanks

Stephen
 

Stephen Woodward | Technical Account Manager

Schools Broadband

E: stephen.woodward@talk-straight.com

M: 07526 566 588

 

I have a school that has been having issues all week, they have been worse at times at high load but they have at no point been smooth, this morning a second school has started reporting the same issues.

 

Whilst usage or at least demand as we can't get the performance has increased since the holiday, it has not increased from before the holiday. 

 

As you can see from this thread and from what I have heard in other forums this is not a case of a few customers having issues.

[Stephen_SchoolsBroadband]

Additional Update -
 

Thank-you for the feedback

 

We have now identified the root cause of the issues that have affected services throughout the week. Following a thorough investigation, we are working closely with our vendor to implement the necessary fixes and resolve the issue as quickly as possible.

 

Our technical teams continue to closely monitor the network while remediation work is carried out, with a focus on maintaining stability and minimising any further disruption.

 

We fully recognise the impact this has had on schools and day-to-day operations, and we sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused. We appreciate your patience and understanding while we work to restore normal service. Further updates will be provided as more information becomes available or once the issue has been fully resolved.
 

Thanks

Stephen
 

Stephen Woodward | Technical Account Manager

Schools Broadband

E: stephen.woodward@talk-straight.com

M: 07526 566 588

 

[synaesthesia]

At least SB's PR speak is improving.

[andy_b]

Oddly, not had the problems until today and now have two schools suffering.

[cullingsh]

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday - 2 schools affected.

 

Today. All of them. That's a pretty big subset.

[JazzFlute]

51 minutes ago, cullingsh said:

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday - 2 schools affected.

 

Today. All of them. That's a pretty big subset.

For some reason this makes me feel better knowing we are all in the same boat now 🤣

 

Today is bad and unusable, best test out there is listen to your radio station of choice and you can tell when the internet drops when the radio goes off.  Not had a song play all the way through today as of yet its been that bad!

Edited April 17 by JazzFlute
spelling

[ultraspy2000]

Honestly need to vent about this as it looks like nothing else is happening.

We’re now a full week into problems that started for some and have since spread wider, and instead of improving, things seem to be getting worse. The troubleshooting and fixes so far have been, frankly, poor.

Blaming it on “..schools returning from holidays and increased usage....” just doesn’t cut it. This isn’t unexpected or a one-off event, it happens every single term, every single year. Capacity planning for predictable demand should be the absolute baseline, not an afterthought.
 

Right now it feels like reactive firefighting rather than any kind of robust solution, and it’s impacting teaching, learning, and day-to-day operations across multiple sites.

SBB putting out reassuring PR statements meanwhile, it’s not helping those of us in IT right now. We’re on the front line, taking the blame and dealing with the fallout from SLT and staff when systems aren’t working, despite having no control over the underlying issue.

[JazzFlute]

8 minutes ago, ultraspy2000 said:

Honestly need to vent about this as it looks like nothing else is happening.

We’re now a full week into problems that started for some and have since spread wider, and instead of improving, things seem to be getting worse. The troubleshooting and fixes so far have been, frankly, poor.

Blaming it on “..schools returning from holidays and increased usage....” just doesn’t cut it. This isn’t unexpected or a one-off event, it happens every single term, every single year. Capacity planning for predictable demand should be the absolute baseline, not an afterthought.
 

Right now it feels like reactive firefighting rather than any kind of robust solution, and it’s impacting teaching, learning, and day-to-day operations across multiple sites.

SBB putting out reassuring PR statements meanwhile, it’s not helping those of us in IT right now. We’re on the front line, taking the blame and dealing with the fallout from SLT and staff when systems aren’t working, despite having no control over the underlying issue.

100% agree with this.  At the end of the day all we can do is move away when contracts are up.  Only thing that has stopped me the last few years is the config/whitelists etc in the background already done with SBB on my network and having to start afresh with new provider but you have to take the jump sometime as cant keep putting up with this as every return to term you dread what's going to happen.

[ultraspy2000]

Thanks and I’m thinking along exactly the same lines.

We’ve looked at moving away in the past (including to LGFL), but always hit the same block, the amount of reconfiguration involved, rebuilding whitelists, and essentially starting from scratch again.

I guess tt’s that balance between short-term pain and long-term gain, but situations like this definitely make the decision feel more urgent.
 

Would be really useful to hear from anyone who’s recently moved away from SBB to another provider and understand how did it go in practice? What was involved overall in terms of new equipment, systems, and configuration, etc...? Was the transition as painful as it seems on paper, or manageable?

[Stephen_SchoolsBroadband]

Hi All,

I completely understand the frustration here.

 

You’re absolutely right to call this out, and I appreciate how difficult it is on your side dealing with the impact in schools, especially when you’re the ones taking the pressure locally.

 

From what we’ve identified, this isn’t purely a capacity issue. We did see some capacity-related pressure earlier in the week, and we’re already in the process of moving schools using VMB onto our newer 100GB NNI links to address that longer term.

However, there is also an underlying issue which has become more apparent as traffic levels have increased. As part of isolating and confirming the root cause, some of the testing carried out on the live network has led to periods of additional instability, which is why it may have seemed more limited earlier in the week but is now impacting more sites.

 

We are currently in the process of implementing a fix, this is already underway, and we’re working through it as quickly and carefully as possible to get things stable again.

 

While this is being applied, you may still see some intermittent issues, but the aim is to stabilise services and then restore full performance as the changes take effect.

 

I’ll keep this thread updated as we make progress..

 

Thanks

Stephen
 

Stephen Woodward | Technical Account Manager

Schools Broadband

E: stephen.woodward@talk-straight.com

M: 07526 566 588

[JazzFlute]

I’ll be glad when today is over. I’m not sure which is worse in practical terms: constant drop‑outs making the service unusable all day, or just pulling the lead altogether and sending everyone home.

I suspect it’s going to be a long weekend, and I’m not confident this will be fixed by Monday, when demand will inevitably spike again at registration time. Today has been the worst day all week — and for quite some time, if I’m honest.

[paulkerton]

I don't deal with SBB directly anymore (the responsibility of others in this organisation) and haven't for 7 years now, but it's interesting to see their problems have not changed in the slightest, in the same time it takes...

• my entire body to regenerate every single cell in it.
• A child who was in Year 6 to make it to the end of their Sixth Form education.
• For NASA New Horizons probe to travel from Jupiter to Pluto
• To complete TWO full undergraduate degrees
• To complete A PhD and a postdoctoral fellowship
• ... and Schools Broadband still falls over the moment schools return from a two-week break.

It is remarkable that seven years later, the system still cannot reconcile a return to 'normal' traffic levels that it was handling perfectly well just a fortnight before. Timeless.

Edited April 17 by paulkerton

[PaddyNewman]

7 hours ago, ultraspy2000 said:

Thanks and I’m thinking along exactly the same lines.

We’ve looked at moving away in the past (including to LGFL), but always hit the same block, the amount of reconfiguration involved, rebuilding whitelists, and essentially starting from scratch again.

I guess tt’s that balance between short-term pain and long-term gain, but situations like this definitely make the decision feel more urgent.
 

Would be really useful to hear from anyone who’s recently moved away from SBB to another provider and understand how did it go in practice? What was involved overall in terms of new equipment, systems, and configuration, etc...? Was the transition as painful as it seems on paper, or manageable?

 

Not to invade on this post too much as I am an LGfL employee, but we can help to a degree with reconfig should you want to come to us. Transfer your filtering, id even do that for you etc. I try to make it as touch free as I can. happy to chat if you want. People switch 1 way or another, some take it as an opportunity to tighten the holes, ive seen some relaxed firewalls in my time from all vendors when they come to us...

Edited April 17 by PaddyNewman

[lordasb]

i am going thought a retender of my feeds to a single school but with split site. 

 

i am building my own smoothwalls with links between them, we own the hardware, we own and run the config, with a direct contract with smoothwall for support. thus the ISP is just a connection, they control nothing of my config , only that they provide the IP address which i use to route my traffic from and to.

 

each smoothwall has 2 external links, in Link load balanced mode so i can change ISP without a major rebuild.

 

yes the 15+ years with sophos, TMG, cisco and smoothwalls setup and management helps me in this role but with the right support you could mange these and remove the need for the ISP to have a strangle hold over the configs or ownership of the system.

 

If they cant provide what is needed take the step and take your systems back to your control 🙂

 

PS i was with E2bn which is now part of TS/SBB but thankfully its effectively just e2bn used wavenet so i dont struggle with the issues of their service. the main feed is BT but i am looking to move away as they cant quote a good price for a 1gb feed, cant afford a 10gb with 2gb link sadly.