Something big is afoot across 800 exchanges...

Came across this on the Eclipse website. Apparently something is being done to connections in 800 exchanges. Now to me that can only means 21cn, WBC, IPSC, who-LLU or some such. The down time fits something like a (nearby) lift and shift or DSLAM->MSAN

Any thoughts?

Incident Ticket: 3143 - Major Upgrade to Broadband Network
Incident Start Date: 18 Mar 2009 at 12:54:00
Planned Close Date: 30 Mar 2009 at 10:00:00
Next Update: at
Affecting: Planned Maintenance DSL National (Planned Maintenance)
Description: Our supplier will be undertaking a major upgrade to their broadband network in order to improve performance across the whole of the UK. This work is due to commence on Monday 23 March and continue daily until Friday 27 March. These improvements will take place in two key stages which are detailed below:

1. From 11:00-15:00 on each week day some customers will see a temporary loss of service for approximately 2 minutes. This work has to be completed during the day due to the logistics of the upgrade work involved.

2. From 00:01-08:00 (approximately) on Tuesday 24 March the majority of the upgrade work will be completed across 800 exchanges throughout the UK. This could potentially affect your service for up to 6 hours.

Due to the huge scale of the work involved we are unable to provide specific notification of precisely which exchanges will be affected and when.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this work may cause you.

Tiscali Wholesale LLU I would guess

If it's related to Eclipse's BT connections (and not the LLU connections they stuffed a load of customers onto) it sounds very much like it's the planned WBC/ADSL2+ activation works which are part of the broadband side of 21CN, and due on many exchanges during the last week of this month.
I doubt it's a "lift & shift" or "DSLAM-MSAN" change (no way they'd be able to do a million or so lines in one night).
I suspect it's just a firmware or software upgrade in the DSLAMs.

But with WBC/ADSL2+ it should affect anyone until the ISP decides to move to IPstream connect or some other WBC product

I was thinking it might be IPSC.

Just seemed interesting. Especially as its kind of any & all customers. That's very much like Enta's move - especially with the inclusion of a weekend in it. As far as we know - like plusnet - they gave up the tiscali llu (for new connections) as a bad job. Either that or they're moving loads on or off of it. Eeek!

Looks like O2 have similar plans
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/showthreaded.php?Bo...

I thought they'd moved me and wrote a ticket. They said they hadn't and would change my settings to see how this effected my complaint. I'm now temporarily on Max, confirmed by a BT speedtest.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Looks like O2 have similar plans
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/showthreaded.php?Bo...

I'm not sure you are right there.

The message is on the Be web site so affecting the LLU service. We can assume that O2 LLU will be similarly affected.

But I can't see that O2 IPStream will be included in the Be LLU notification. So who knows what they may be up to and when.

Its likely to be grooming work in preparation for WBC or 21CN Voice. Basically BT are taking the opportunity to move connections to new DSLAM ports so that moving them to WBC later is easier.