James Titcumb

Yes, at last, with 100% thanks to Newnet, I finally have internet. I won’t repeat my praises too much about how excellent their tech support is, and how much of a pleasure it was to deal with them and get the problems sorted. I highly recommend them to anyone at all.

Yep - we’re live and kicking again! Asgrim.com now works, well ahead of schedule, so top marks to 1and1.co.uk so far!

Now all I need is internet at home… gah!

Well this time it’s not Pipex’s fault, it’s BT now, and the stupid invention of TPON - Telephony over Passive Optical Network. I’ve been without internet (and thus currently forking out £25 a month to host the most important websites I run on Newnet) for two weeks, and it’s really annoying.

To outline, I’m trying to get Be Unlimited which allows the use of Annex M, allowing higher upload speeds (ideal for running my servers). From the outset, there were problems. When I first ordered, Be said that there was a problem with my line. I rang to/fro between Be and BT trying to understand the problem, eventually getting the blood out of the stone that my line had a TPON tag.

Nevertheless, a few days later I was given an activation date and my activation pack was sent through. Hooray, I thought! Along came 10th July… I got home, no internet. I rang Be, they told me it could be up to 9pm until it gets activated. 9pm came, and went with no sign of internet. Today, I have been told this by Be:

Dear James, I just spoke with BT Openreach and they told me that unfortunately they can not replace the fibre optic line to a copper in that area and they advised me to cancel the order because the fibre optic line is not compatible with broadband orders.

Well that’s just great. I went on the Think Broadband forum (see thread here) to enquire (as well as replying to Be essentially saying, I don’t care, get BT to sort it out pronto). If the case really is that I’m still on TPON and there’s no copper overlays left, then it looks like I’m screwed. That’s just great. I’ve spent hundreds of pounds on server equipment recently, which will now be wasted.

However, I’m not letting this lie - I am determined to get Be Unlimited service, and I will do everything I can to make that happen.

And if it doesn’t work, then I will be a failure - a web developer… without internet?

Interesting concept… thanks a bloody lot BT.

I just heard from Be Unlimited that I should be getting my broadband enabled on 10th July! Woo! Once I have that, I can start the migration back from the Newnet servers to my own again.

Due to my house move, I’m relocating my servers to a temporary location for a couple of weeks until my new internet line is set up. Therefore all websites that run on my servers will be down for several hours during transit to the temporary location on Saturday 28th July 2008. The move will be done some time mid-afternoon, and I anticipate they will be running again late afternoon. The temporary location does have a different IP, so I will have to update the DNS records, which can take up to 24-48 hours to propogate around the world. I aim to keep disruption to a minimum, but please bear with me!

Note that once I have the internet line working in my new house, similar downtime will occur again due to transit from the temporary location to the new house. I will inform again when this is due to happen!