September 6, 2009 3 Comments
Storing / Disruption of service at XS4ALL Provider, Sunday Sept 6 2009

Storing / Disruption of service at XS4ALL Provider, Sunday Sept 6 2009

This post is bi-lingual because I believe that Dutch XS4ALL users should be able to read this too.
Deze post is tweetalig, omdat Nederlandstalige XS4ALL gebruikers dit ook moeten kunnen lezen.

UPDATE: All’s OK again after 21 to 24 hours of disruption of ADSL service at XS4ALL / KPN.
UPDATE: Alles weer goed na 21 tot 24 uur ADSL storing bij XS4ALL / KPN.

(en) Disruption of Service since 12:58 Sept 6, 2009 GMT+1

Since 12:58 (about) and at least until 14:15, when I write this post, the service of XS4ALL is interrupted in the surrounding of Amsterdam Sloterdijk. I write this post just to inform you as a visitor to my site, that this site was shortly unavailable. But I also write this as a rant to XS4ALL, which has been the Nr 1 provider in the Netherlands when it comes to service availability and helpdesk efficiency: apparently small disruptions of service are better not mentioned on their website.

Whenever things like this happen, everybody starts calling the helpdesk. The tape that I hear is “Please call again later, it is too busy”. Thanks XS4ALL. If this is the nr 1 in service, I wonder how bad the other Dutch providers are….

The ADSL was also down on September 4 2009 around 0:30 GMT+1. Also not reported by XS4ALL.

Summary of events

@12:58 earliest messages of the service disruption.
@14:05 through Twitter, XS4ALL has acknowledged the disruption of service, not on their website.
@14:26 one and a half hour later, XS4ALL mentions a “country wide disruption of KPN ADSL services”.
@17:15 since about 5 o’clock local time, people start reporting @Twitter that XS4ALL is “up” again, unfortunately, these are only the happy few, most report that connection is still unavailable: see this (17:00), this (16:20) and this (17:10), but also still problems at this (16:15) and this (17:20).
@17:40 first announcement in a major newspaper, the Eindhovens Dagblad about the disruption.
@20:02 my own blog is “up” again, apparently Amsterdam Sloterdijk is online now. Apologies to all for it taking so long, just blame my provider, XS4ALL and KPN. Feel sorry for the rest of Holland @ XS4ALL / KPN still not having internet.
@21:00 and @21:32, a news bulletin came out at Internet ADSL.nl, announcing that it’s still not solved and this twitter says he’s still not online
@22:14 XS4ALL gives out an “emergency maintenance” message, between 0.00 and 4.00 AM certain routers will be reset. Even more people offline!
@09:00 (about) silently XS4ALL takes turns the message into “resolved”, apparently the drama is over. Anybody still offline? This twitter user was the first to acknowledge the All OK this morning.
@10:00 (about) according to user on this blog, at 9:45 this morning still problems, that later resolved.
all day: very busy helpdesk

Apart from some other local disruptions (which happen every day, unfortunately) in Muiden and Lijnden, I consider this topic closed, unless I hear otherwise. Anybody that still doesn’t have internet or was connected much later: please comment.

(nl) Storing XS4ALL ADSL vanaf 12:58 op 6 september 2009

Sinds 12:58 (ongeveer) en zeker tot en met 14:15, toen ik dit schreef, was de ADSL verbinding van XS4ALL in de omgeving van Amsterdam Sloterdijk onderbroken. Ik schrijf dit voor de bezoekers van mijn website, die kort onderbroken was. Maar ik schrijf het vooral als klacht naar XS4ALL, die constant reclame maakt als Nr 1 provider van Nederland voor beschikbaarheid en helpdesk kwaliteit: blijkbaar worden kleine onderbrekingen (nu meer dan een uur!) beter niet genoemd op hun website onder “storingen”.

Iedere keer als zoiets gebeurt, belt iedereen de helpdesk die overbelast raakt. Het bandje dat je dan — na het keuzemenu — te horen krijgt is: “het is momenteel te druk, bel later nog eens”. Bedankt, XS4ALL! Als dit de nummer 1 van Nederland is, dan ben ik benieuwd hoe erg de andere Nederlandse providers zijn….

Deze zelfde ADSL verbinding was ook onderbroken op 4 september 2009 rond 0:30. Dit was evenmin gerapporteerd door XS4ALL.

Samenvatting van gebeurtenissen

@12:58 eerste berichten dat er een storing is, gezien de drukte bij XS4ALL helpdesk was het waarschijnlijk al eerder begonnen.
@14:05 via Twitter  meldt XS4ALL dat er een “onbekende storing van XS4ALL Only” is, maar nog niet op hun website.
@14:26 zo’n anderhalf uur na het begin, meldt XS4ALL op haar website dat er een “landelijke storing is van KPN ADSL”.
@17:15 sinds ongeveer 17:00 uur komen er mondjesmaat rapporten binnen @Twitter dat XS4ALL weer “up” is, helaas zijn het slechts enkelen en geeft XS4ALL nog steeds geen informatie over de “onbekende storing”… tja… Zie dit (17:00), dit (16:20) en dit (17:10), maar er zijn ook nog steeds problemen zoals hier (16:15) en hier (17:20).
@17:40 eerste nieuwsmelding in Eindhovens Dagblad over de storing.

@20:02 sinds ongeveer 20:02 is mijn site weer “up”, dus waarschijnlijk Amsterdam Sloterdijk is weer online. Excuses voor iedereen dat het zo lang moest duren, geef maar XS4ALL en KPN de schuld. Sorry voor iedereen die nog steeds geen verbinding heeft.
@21:00 en @21:32, een nieuwsbericht op Internet ADSL.nl komt uit dat meedeelt dat het probleem nog steeds niet is opgelost en deze twitteraar meldt dat hij nog steeds niet online is
@22:14 XS4ALL geeft een bericht voor  “spoedonderhoud”,  tussen 0.00 en 4.00 vannacht zullen bepaalde routers gereset worden. Nog meer offline dus!
@09:00 (plusminus) XS4ALL geeft stilletjes het sein “brand meester”, blijkbaar is het drama eindelijk over. De balans: bijna 21 uur offline voor veel gebruikers en geen informatie tijdens die tijd van XS4ALL. Jammer, gemiste kansen. Nog iemand offline? Deze twitteraar was de eerste om aan te geven dat het allemaal weer goed was vanmorgen.
@10:00 (about) volgens commentaar van gebruiker van dit blog, om 9:45 nog steeds niet overal opgelost, inmiddels echter wel.
hele day: erg druk op helpdesk

Behalve wat lokale storingen (die helaas iedere dag voorkoment) in Muiden en Lijnden, lijkt deze storing opgelost en kan ik dit als afgehandeld beschouwen, tenzij iemand not verbindingsproblemen heeft: in dat geval, laat het me weten!

– Abel –

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  • Arjan

    While this morning the help desk pages stated the problem was solved (no end-time listed though), I still had no internet nor telephone. I restarted my modem multiple times, and gave it plenty of time to get connected. The modem’s connectivity test showed DSL was fine, but ATM and PPP failed.

    When I finally called the help desk at 9.44 AM, the recording still played the same message like yesterday late afternoon. This time XS4ALL did not disconnect saying they were too busy, and the expected wait time was 16 minutes, so I decided to hold. After waiting almost 18 minutes the internet connection and VoIP were suddenly alive, so I disconnected the help desk call before someone answered.

    (XS4ALL: disconnecting the caller is not nice at all, especially as it took listening to the “have your customer id ready” and “how to reset your modem” instructions each time, before you repeatedly dropped the line after about 2 minutes! The message you recorded between 2.10 PM and 2.35 PM helped a lot. Most important: stating on your website that the problem is solved, while actually people could still have trouble connecting is not too nice, nor is waiting without any indication of how many people are still in line…)

    • http://www.undermyhat.org Abel Braaksma

      Thanks for your post, XS4ALL is more and more behaving like the big brother that KPN is, pity. Quick responses, clear messages and brilliant helpdesks, all stories of the past?

      I updated my blog post a bit with your insights, thanks!

      • Arjan

        At least they still provide a list of solved issues. Many providers are not that open about things.

        Too bad XS4ALL didn’t seem to realise how many people were having trouble, maybe even because they couldn’t see the help desk queue exploding as they only allow about 50 of 60 people to queue up? Maybe next time sending a tweet to @xs4all or @xs4all_storing is a better way to let them know…

        In fact, if the help desk pages had not mentioned other issues, then maybe I would have assumed that everyone was calling the help desk for the very same problem I was facing. But as my problem was not listed, I was eager to get in touch, thinking everybody else might be calling for the known issues rather than for this new issue.

        (I’d love XS4ALL to use the recorded message for ALL known issues that are listed on the web site, even smaller issues. Not everyone can use another connection to get to the web site, and not everyone knows about text page 444 at Net 5. Those people are blocking my access to the help desk. ;-) And just to be sure my previous comment was clear: my internet and VoIP problems were solved at about 10.00 AM today, still surely later than claimed on the web site.)

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