Main Service: Broadband
Secondary Service: Access Network
Issue Summary: Other. Island-wide SDSL ISAM Upgrades
Start Date: 27/07/2 010 16:15:00
Expected Duration: up to 30 minutes per ISAM upgrade
Maintenance Window: From 03/08/2010 05:00:00 to 03/08/2010 08:00:00
As part of the SDSL OS program, it will be necessary to upgrade all SDSL ISAM nodes on the morning of Tuesday 3rd August from 05:00hrs to 08:00hrs. This work will effect various exchange areas of Douglas Central, Douglas North, Castletown, Ramsey, Marown, Laxey, & St. Johns, Snaefell & Creg-Ny-Baa. ISP customers connected to the affected SDSL ISAM nodes can expect up to 30 minutes service downtime within the 3hr maintenance window.
Planned maintenance will be carried out on the Manxnet DNS infrastructure on Tuesday 3rd August between 00:00 and 06:00 BST.
No disruption to the DNS service is anticipated; however there is a small risk to all Manxnet DSL, hosting and corporate customers who use the Manxnet DNS servers.
Due to a number of customer faults logged against a Douglas North ISAM line card, the line card will be reset to resolve and prevent further occurences.
The line card is located in DGIN-ISAM-21:1-1-7, and will effect up to 42 customers, circuits include:
672557,673003,612040,628220,676008,614652,678318,622304,665708, 615596,620859,610677,660703,612295,626963,660700,662619,614533, 671981,618366,675572,662053,671385,625604,671171,614694,624404, 618322,615651,623578,674486,624580,670205,660570,617492,674957, 610995,615968,620799,626343,672636,611452.
Estimated down time 5 mins
Start time 0845 22/06/10
IMPORTANT MESSAGE
PLEASE READ
MALICIOUS SPAM EMAIL
If you get an email claiming to be from us, or from any source, requesting your details, DO NOT send your info unless you are 100% sure that you are sending to the correct and trusted source.
I have had several emails this morning asking is this (see below) email is from MCB.
IT IS NOT FROM MCB, mark it as spam and delete it.
"From: HELP DESK [mailto:helpdesk1@mcb.net] Sent: 15 June 2010 20:17 To: undisclosed-recipients: Subject: YOUR RESPONSE IS NEEDED Dear Account User CONFIRM YOUR MCB.NET EMAIL ACCOUNT. BY FILLING THE INFORMATION NEEDED BELOW. This message is from the Database MCB.NET INFORMATION SERVICES DIVISION Information Technology service messagingcenter,to all our email account holders. All Mailhub systems will undergo regularly scheduled maintenance. Further to the appearance of the Conficker virus on the account network at the end of last week, Computer Services staff worked into the weekend carrying out remedial action. Most systems are operational but some services are slow due to the increased anti-virus measures which have been put in place. Access to your mailbox via our mailportal will be unavailable for some period of time during this maintenanceperiod. We shall be carrying out service maintenance on our INFORMATION SERVICES DIVISION database and e- mail account center for better online services. We are deleting all unused e-mail accounts to create more space for new accounts. In order to ensure you do not experience service interruptions/possible deactivation you are advice to reply to this email immediately confirming your Webmail Account details below for confirmation/identification 1. First Name & Last Name: 2. Full Login Email Address: 3. Username & Password 4. Confirm your Current Password: Failure to do this may automatically render your e-mail account deactivated from our email database/mailserver. to enable us upgrade your email account, you are advice to reply to this mail. Thanks. Computer Services Information Office MCB.NET A BETTER EXPERIENCE."
Isle of Man Steam Packet Company website now working.
Some people have been having problems booking tickets through the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company website.
If you are one of those having problems booking tickets ring them, tell them their site is not working and insist on the web discount.
"If you require any further information which is not available on this website, and do not want to send us an email, please contact our Reservations Team on 661661 (IOM), 08722 992 992* (UK) or 0044 8722 992 992* (ROI & Outside UK).
*Calls to this number are charged at 10 pence per minute including VAT from a BT landline, calls from other networks and mobile operators may vary."
The failed router has now been replaced.
If you are still having problems reboot your router and computer and it should all work.
Before anyone points out that I am posting to tell people who can’t get online how to fix the problem on our website online, the problem would still allow users to see our site.
Anyone still having problems can call me on 623841
Thank you for your patience
MCB Support
Our external provider has had a major fail and they are at the moment in the process of replacing but everything should be back up soon.
Thank you for your patience
MCB Support
Are you a Windows user? Do you make sure that your antivirus program is updated regularly? Do you feel safe? You shouldn't! Read on to find out why .
Freeware Email Archiving Software!
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MediaMonkey is the music organizer for the serious collector.
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Try MediaMonkey if you want painless synchronization with almost any portable player.
NOCC
I have left NOCC as long as I could for those die hards who were still using it for their webmail.
To use webmail from now on for any @mcb.net email addresses use SquirrelMail at http://mail.mcb.net/webmail/src/login.php
You can get to it without the link by going to the website http://www.mcb.net/ along the top to webmail and click on the @mcb.net drop down.
ADSL Service Speed Issues
Contention – What is contention?
Standard ADSL contention is 50:1 for residential users and 20:1 for business users, which are both an industry standard.
ADSL Contention ratio is the ratio of potential maximum demand on actual bandwidth.
In other words if there are 50 people using the same bandwidth of a 8Mbps ADSL line then the contention ratio is 50:1.
This in turn means that the actual bandwidth that any one of those 50 users may be able to use can be down as low as 160Kbps.
For example, a 50:1 contention ratio indicates that a maximum of 49 users (50 including you) can share your bandwidth at one time. Whereas a 1:1 contention ratio indicates that you would not be sharing the bandwidth with anyone, it is exclusively yours.
As it is I who sets the contention at our end I do not allow our users to drop below 40:1 contention and that may only happen at our busiest times depending of course on what your other 49 users are doing at the same time.
It is important for all users to realise that now their speeds are up so high that the connection speed allowed at the website they are viewing or downloading from will be usually restricted to a per connection speed of e.g. 50Kbps regardless of what the connection speed is capable of.
The 8Mbps upgrade has caused many varied issues to deal with and we are progressing in new technology to take advantage of the faster speeds available to our customers but this may take some time to impact fully.
Please do not forget we are getting no more revenue for the increases in service you have received yet our costs have jumped considerably and.
Voluntary Code of Practice: Broadband Speeds - Ofcom
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/ioi/copbb/copbb/
Up to 8Mb Broadband uses advanced 'rate-adaptive' broadband technology to deliver higher speeds. Rather than running at 'fixed' speeds of 512kbps, 1Mb, or 2Mb, your broadband speed will automatically be set to the fastest speed your phone line can support. The main factor governing this speed is your phone line's length from the exchange. The average-length phone line can support a maximum speed of around 3.8Mb, with shorter lines able to support higher speeds (up to 8Mb), and longer lines slower speeds.
Please note that the above relates to the maximum speed-capability of your line. In reality, the actual speeds you will experience will differ and will continually vary throughout the day as levels of congestion on the Internet change. You should not expect full speeds all the time, especially during the daily peak period (5pm - 10pm) when global Internet speeds are at their slowest due to congestion. However, Broadband will always automatically give you the best possible speeds for the network conditions.
The main factors governing the maximum broadband speed your phone line can support are:
Once set, your maximum broadband speed should remain largely stable, only varying if one of the above factors changes significantly. The main factors governing the day-to-day download speed you will experience over your line are:
Up to 8Mb Broadband will take all the above factors into account, and then automatically set your speed to the fastest possible stable rate, modifying this if any of these factors change significantly.
Our Fair Usage Policy (FUP) is designed to make sure our Internet service is quick and reliable whenever you use it.
A very small number of customers use Peer to Peer (P2P) or file sharing software, which constantly sends and receives video and other very large files, throughout the day. This type of activity uses a lot of bandwidth and can significantly reduce the speed at which other customers can access the internet during peak hours. In most cases, approximately 1% of customers use more than 30% of the available bandwidth during peak hours. We don't believe this is fair to the vast majority of our customers.
Our FUP automatically identifies the very small number of extremely heavy users and manages their bandwidth at peak periods of activity on our Internet service, throughout the day, to protect the service for all our other customers. Outside peak periods, the use of the Internet by these heavy users is unaffected.
We think this is the fairest approach. It protects the quality of service for the vast majority of our customers when they most use of our Internet service, while at the same time allowing the extremely heavy users to continue to send and receive without restriction outside of peak hours.
This work involves the software upgrade to all Exchange based ADSL ISAM nodes that provide access connectivity for Broadband ISP services; and will cause up to 30 minutes service disruption whilst the ISAM node is upgraded.
The proposed dates/times are detailed below:
WEEK 1:
· Tuesday 26th January (05:00 – 08:00hrs) – Douglas North ADSL ISAMs (Majestic Drive FTTC ISAM will be temporarily affected)
· Wednesday 27th January (06:00 – 08:00hrs) – Laxey ADSL ISAMs (Glen Mona FTTC ISAM will be temporarily affected)
· Thursday 28th January (05:00 – 08:00hrs) – Castletown ADSL ISAMs (Ballasalla & Ronague FTTC ISAMs will be temporarily affected)
WEEK 2:
· Tuesday 2nd February (05:00 – 08:00hrs) – Peel ADSL ISAMs (Glen Maye FTTC ISAM will be temporarily affected)
· Wednesday 3rd February (06:00 – 08:00hrs) – Sulby & Kirk Andreas ADSL ISAMs (Ballaugh, Sandygate, Jurby & Bride FTTC ISAMs will be temporarily affected)
· Thursday 4th February (05:00 – 08:00hrs) – Port Erin ADSL ISAMs (Colby FTTC ISAM will be temporarily affected)
WEEK 3:
· Tuesday 9th February (06:00 – 08:00hrs) – Marown ADSL ISAMs (Mount Rule & Braaid FTTC ISAMs will be temporarily affected)
· Wednesday 10th February ((06:00 – 08:00hrs) – St. Johns & Kirk Michael ADSL ISAMs
· Thursday 11th February (05:00 – 08:00hrs) – Ramsey ADSL ISAMs (Maughold FTTC ISAMs will be temporarily affected)