Why Vumatel had downtime this week

[Bradley Prior]

Why Vumatel had downtime this week

Vumatel customers told MyBroadband that the network had been down for an extended period earlier this week after load-shedding took place.

On Tuesday, Vumatel tweeted that “due to the number of suburbs that are being load-shed at once in CPT, we are experiencing longer than normal delays to restore fibre services when power is restored”.

 

[jaco45]

It is still down and goes down for 3 to 4 hours every time after load shedding.

 

[crashdan]

Power returned at 21.40 last night and Fibre was still not working at 7.30 this morning, with multiple CPE and router restarts... Vumatel not telling us something.

Monday Power came on at 4 but 6.30 fibre came back and at 7 if dropped and back after 8 @Vumatel explain that.

 

[supersunbird]

No issues on OpenServe...

 

[ThinkCentre]

Why does Openserve, of all people, not have issues?

I guess much less clients!

 

[hboshoff4]

Having an inverter running to ensure we can at least enjoy our internet, one will expect your connection to stay up when the power comes back on. But no, last night Vumatel kicked me off just after the power came on.
My thoughts (and this is just speculating):
Every CPE must connect through an authentication process. And with multiple areas going down during load shedding (stages 3 - 4), the number of re connections after load shedding will be massive. I think the servers at Vumatel just can't handle the load. They will have a queue limit (say 1000), and once the limit is reached, and stays like that for say 5 - 10 seconds, the server times out, kicking everyone of the queue (even the people that where connected via external power during load shedding) and trying to restart.
I would think Vumatel will have multiple servers that will split the load, and if the queue grows too fast (set a warning limit at 50%), a backup server is called up to help carry this load. Ensuring faster connection and a queue that never grows past the 30% mark.

I am just giving my thoughts, hope this makes sense.

PS, since open serve is part of Telkom, they already have the infrastructure to carry this large loads with ease, thus giving connection back as soon as power is back.

 

[Danie58terb]

Who will compensate me for my huge financial losses occurred during the extended down time. So sick of excuses in this country because nothing work properly any more. All the competent people have left and the few left simply cannot cope with this corrupt system.

 

[ranger]

Why does Openserve, of all people, not have issues?

What makes you think they would? Oh, you associated downtime on ADSL with incompetence at network design/testing, and not the decreasing viability of maintaining a copper last-mile network in South Africa.

I guess much less clients!

Uh, no.

Openserve FTTH works very similarly to ADSL (both use PPPoE), and no FTTH network in SA has anywhere near the combined number of DSL and FTTH users on Openserve.

Yet ADSL comes up immediately after load-shedding, or isn't negatively impacted at all for those with UPS or other backup power.

 

[Swa]

I don't see the why answered.