Bewdley (WMBEW) PCP3

On 09/03/2016 at around 8PM the cab was hit by a car resulting in a predictable lack of internet. Thankfully noone was injured, the cabinet and the car were the only victims.

BTOR were on-site within 45 minutes along with police/etc to clean up the incident, and by 11/03/2016 a brand new cab was in place. Over the weekend they worked pretty much all day Sat/Sun until we got some service back on 13/03/2016.

I really was impressed by how quickly they were able to get things running again. Great job by OR.

Unfortunately, ever since then, like clockwork, we've been getting outages three times a day. One long outage overnight, usually starting around 3-4am and finishing anywhere from 7:30-8:30am. An afternoon, from 1-3pm for anything from 15 minutes to 2 hours, and then in the evenings, any time from 7-10pm for 15 minutes to an hour or so.

I understand things were damaged/needing repair/replacement, but I'm wondering why, 2 weeks later, we're still getting the same pattern of disconnects, and engineers attending pretty much every day, at least once. Each disconnect is preceded by an RDI notice to the modem, its not simply being cut off.

The BT faults page just shows a generic 'we're sorry you might be experiencing difficulties getting online' message.

I'm just hoping that someone with access to more info than I have could shed any light on these continued issues we're seeing? My ISP have only been able to give me info enough to say 'BT has put an estimate of.. <date>' - and this has now changed 3 times, simply being put back a week each time.

Throughout this time, my line has been syncing at its usual 79999/20000 and performance has been totally normal. Except for the outages, of course.

Mains power has not been restored so the device is running on batteries which need to be constantly replaced.

Count yourself lucky ...

When our pole was demolished we lost service completely. BT provided a 3G modem which gave us a basic service until they could restore service. The local authority refused them permission to put temporary traffic control in place (for an hour) until a formal application, assessment and approval was completed - estimated at 13 weeks! With a little pressure and some illicit overnight work, BT "found a way" to circumvent the LA restrictions.

Your cabinet, which Ribble suggests needs power restoring, may be facing similar issues.

Thanks for the replies.

Running on batteries was something a friend had suggested, I'd just assumed batteries that would fit inside the cabinet wouldn't keep it going for a whole day. I guess the long overnight outages are just down to power-saving periods when there's not much demand.

As far as I've seen, there's only one visit a day right now.

Pity we're still getting evening outages at less than ideal times right when I want to be using it. At least I know *why* it's happening now, so it's much easier for me accept as 'the norm' for a while.

I've got automatic 3G failover working so disruption is fairly minimal.

I guess I will just wait!

I'd expect them to be changing batteries 2 or 3 times a day otherwise there would be long outage periods

Can the batteries be changed without powering the cab down?

If so it's quite possible I'm simply not seeing them turning up to change them, as I can only see them from one window in the house.

I only have cause to look if the connection goes down really..

They will likely have one set charging while another is in use. It's possible to hot swap them without powering down the cabinet, as long as they don't run out before they get there