Vumatel outage ?

its all good and well that they are monitoring their own network , but why is other fiber providers not having this amount of issues ? if you sell X fiber connections in a area , you would need to install hardware to handle X fiber connections ? but if you gamble and try and get away with sub par hardware that handles 0.5 X and then not have the decency to admit your gamble failed , you are just another greedy ISP in a river of bad ones.
 
Bighit said:
I still don't understand why there was no storm after the load shedding at 2:30, but there is at 9:17 tonight?
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I will be getting an update tomorrow morning from their NOC so I will ask about it.

We have also noticed it depends on how fast or slow the CoCT turns on the substations per suburb.

In some cases, they have spaced substations apart by 5-10mins which create less flooding on the DHCP network.
 
reverent911 said:
its all good and well that they are monitoring their own network , but why is other fiber providers not having this amount of issues ? if you sell X fiber connections in a area , you would need to install hardware to handle X fiber connections ? but if you gamble and try and get away with sub par hardware that handles 0.5 X and then not have the decency to admit your gamble failed , you are just another greedy ISP in a river of bad ones.
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Do you understand how the Vumatel Activate Ethernet is built compared to the majority of the other networks?
 
Surely there is something they can do on their switches to prevent this or assign us static ip to their CPEs for the tiime being ???
 
I don't need to know how Ford builds a car , but if i buy one i would expect it work if i don't drive it for 2.5 hours ?
 
tibbydudeza said:
Surely there is something they can do on their switches to prevent this or assign us static ip to their CPEs for the tiime being ???
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This would not solve the issue.

DHCP is a boardcast protocol. It sends out and received via boardcast.

So in the case of Vumatel's Activate Ethernet network, when 5000+ CPEs come online, they all send out a boardcast. The server will start the negotiations with each CPE but responding with a boardcast across the network.

Any CPE that does not get a response in the default time, will send out a boardcast saying it couldn't find a DHCP server. Then waits a short period of time and retries.

A static IP just reserves an IP for a Mac address but still has to boardcast to negotiate the link.
 
reverent911 said:
I don't need to know how Ford builds a car , but if i buy one i would expect it work if i don't drive it for 2.5 hours ?
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I hear you and would love nothing more than to stop having to explain to multiple clients a day as to why their internet is down even after loadshedding.

Unfortunately, it's not so straight forward. The system was designed in a country where power outages are super rare.

Again, Vumatel are constantly making changes to improve their service and they fully understand the frustrations of their ISP partners and the clients of said ISPs.
 
tibbydudeza said:
Please explain ... Why cant they switch to PPPoE ????
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This is a Layer3 network so they wouldn't be able to "just "switch" to a different protocol. They would need to rebuild the whole network design.

They would need to host all the PPPoE servers unless they used PPPoE concentrators to "relay" the ISPs PPPoE services. This would never happen as the Layer3 network is really well designed (For countries that don't get 2-3 outages a day :rolleyes:)
 
Thanks for the feedback.
Tell them they made things worse now ... Zone 6 loadshed at 9pm and tbe flashing blue lights are back like last time
 
Nicholas Marzio said:
This is a Layer3 network so they wouldn't be able to "just "switch" to a different protocol. They would need to rebuild the whole network design.

They would need to host all the PPPoE servers unless they used PPPoE concentrators to "relay" the ISPs PPPoE services. This would never happen as the Layer3 network is really well designed (For countries that don't get 2-3 outages a day :rolleyes:)
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So long storey short if you happen to be on Vumatel in a region such as Goedemoed, cut your losses and go back onto something like LTE? Not trying to be snarky so apologies if it comes across that way...just a bit miffed that I ordered a 1.5kva UPS today only to find out a UPS isnt a failsafe either....despite the Vumatel email.
EDIT: by the way...with both octotel en vumatel vying for fibre during the trenching, is it possible to jump ship to them? Or are we stuck with Vuma because its literally the name on the box outside my house?
 
Valaskjalf said:
So long storey short if you happen to be on Vumatel in a region such as Goedemoed, cut your losses and go back onto something like LTE? Not trying to be snarky so apologies if it comes across that way...just a bit miffed that I ordered a 1.5kva UPS today only to find out a UPS isnt a failsafe either....despite the Vumatel email.
EDIT: by the way...with both octotel en vumatel vying for fibre during the trenching, is it possible to jump ship to them? Or are we stuck with Vuma because its literally the name on the box outside my house?
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I understand where you are coming from. IMO, Vumatel have the most stable and impressive network out of any of the fibre providers I have worked with.

This issue is something I don't think they planned for all the years back when they picked the system design and I don't blame them.

Which other countries get 2-3 power outages a day :crying:

Regarding changing FNOs, If you only have a Vumatel wall box, you are stuck with Vumatel until another provider arrives. (Most likely Openserve, as they plan to cover all of SA like with ADSL)

Octotel float their own fibre and build their own network using Layer 2 so you would only be able to switch to them if they put a wall box on your boundary wall.

I personally wouldn't switch back to another internet service but I might be added a failover connection into my setup. (LTE is not the worse idea as a backup)

I will most like be setting up a wireless link to my office if I can get permission from my BC (1Gbps fibre + 1Gbps Wireless failover :p)
 
i am also not trying to be snarky but unfortunately it seems if you live in the northern suburbs if a "fk me" situation.

i am not a hardware techie but coming from software , if you have software that don't scale you either throw more hardware at it and/or you redesign your software. or you pull all resources to make your software scalable ASAP. problem is the feedback from vumatel has not pointed to any of those 2 solutions , if i have to put into software terms what it seems they are doing ( at least to me ) it would be that there is a guy sitting in a office 24/7 rebooting servers the whole time to hopefully give enough people a few seconds of usage before the server falls over again to try and calm down the complaints and hopefully buy enough time till the usage drops again. i would LOVE to proven wrong and see them upgrade their infrastructure to handle the load but i have seen no evidence of that.

if a UPS is going to make the difference , i would have thought they would give their customers discount vouchers or access to a cheap UPS from them.
 
Still without internet on Vumatel ( Rocketnet ISP ) after numerous reboots 3 hours after loadshedding ended.

Would a UPS type of solution for the CPE plus router avoid this ridiculousness or not ? If not - cancelling Fibre month end and will look at Telkom LTE prepaid/month to month or whatever else regarding LTE . LTE can probably go with on holiday with Telkom roaming eventually on Vodacom.
 
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joshuatree said:
Still without internet on Vumatel ( Rocketnet ISP ) after numerous reboots 3 hours after loadshedding ended - Eversdal , Durbanville.

Would a UPS type of solution for the CPE plus router avoid this ridiculousness or not ? If not - cancelling Fibre month end and will look at Telkom LTE prepaid/month to month or whatever else regarding LTE . LTE can probably go with on holiday with Telkom roaming eventually on Vodacom.
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Same as me. Rocketnet vuma. Works a bit then drops and when it works it's buggy. YouTube lags etc.
 
Yep it is farked up worse than before.

So much world class network that cant route properly.

They need an intervention of experts like Eskom.
 
Technically it should work if every Vumatel Customer has a UPS installed, but then they should include that with the installation cost. There is no way I am paying an extra 2k for that. Let's be honest here, when Vumatel works, nothing else even comes close to their network. The real problem is our useless SOE Eskom causing all this k#k.
 
SuperMario said:
Technically it should work if every Vumatel Customer has a UPS installed, but then they should include that with the installation cost. There is no way I am paying an extra 2k for that. Let's be honest here, when Vumatel works, nothing else even comes close to their network. The real problem is our useless SOE Eskom causing all this k#k.
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I have mine on a UPS and it still doesn't help.
 
Cius said:
Just got an email from Vumatel saying essentially what has been shared here. Our home internet is working but behaving very strangely. Some sites are fine but when my wife tried to access a specific local page she got redirected to a Vumatel page asking us to enter a cell number to activate our fiber. Its been active for years. Really odd stuff.
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My mom is on Vumatel with Afrihost and after load shedding when she tried to browse the internet she also got redirected to an Afrihost/Vumatel branded page asking her to enter her cellphone number to activate her fibre connection. At first when she told me I was concerned she was seeing sort of scam or phishing attempt, but it looks like it is legit. Anyone else seen this too?
 
MightyQuin said:
I have mine on a UPS and it still doesn't help.
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Yes, because 99% of the other people don't have theirs on a UPS, so when the power comes back on for them, it bombs out the network. If everyone else also have a UPS, the whole network should stay online during load shedding, and we won't have this problem.
 
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