Hyperoptic customers left in dark as power outage takes down systems
- Reference: 1738150993
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/01/29/hyperoptic_outage_scotland/
- Source link:
The outage affected several of the company's Scottish customers and, according to a Register reader and the company's helpline, parts of the Glasgow region remain resolutely down.
The problems began on Friday, when [1]Storm Éowyn , "probably the strongest storm" to hit the UK in at least ten years, according to the Met Office, arrived, causing a power outage in the region. Power was quickly restored, but connectivity was not for many Hyperoptic customers.
[2]
According to our reader: "I spoke to an engineer and their UPS [Uninterruptible Power Supply] appears to be fried now, with the input meter reading 0."
[3]
[4]
UPSes are a common feature of datacenters and have been for years. In addition to batteries, many companies also rely on generators to keep the lights on in the event of a power failure. Still, you'd expect a broadband provider like Hyperoptic to have plenty of redundancy and a support contract to ensure customers are not left in the dark in terms of connectivity.
Hyperoptic seemingly had to wait out the weekend until its UPS supplier could deal with the problem. We contacted the company to confirm this was the case, but other than an acknowledgment of our request, it did not comment. Considering the mission-critical nature of the system, however, we'd expect response time for a UPS problem to be measured in minutes or hours rather than days.
[5]Ofcom unveils broadband switching plans, but providers claim it's not so easy
[6]Tired techie botched preventative maintenance he soon learned wasn't needed
[7]Eutelsat OneWeb blames 366th day for 48-hour date disaster
[8]Technical issue briefly grounds American Airlines flights across US
Last night, affected customers had already been offline for four days. However, our reader told us: "Their compensation requirements only kick in after two working days, not actual days, of outage."
Hyperoptic, which brought the UK's first residential 1 Gb broadband service to London in 2011, proudly proclaims that it only offers full fiber broadband. This means fiber-to-the-premises or fiber-to-the-building rather than a service that stops at the street cabinet and relies on legacy copper cables for the rest of the way. It also claims an average download and upload speed of 900 Mbps, assuming the service is up.
[9]
The Register asked Hyperoptic if the prolonged outage was down to the UPS issues as our reader suggested. We also asked how compensation would work. However, other than the company's head of brand and communications promising the Hyperoptic would "come back to you shortly," we have heard no more.
A recorded message on the customer support line this morning says services to Bishopton, a Renfrewshire village about 4 miles (6.5 km) northwest of Glasgow Airport (where a Second World War [10]Royal Ordnance Factory was once sited), are still down. ®
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[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqjvqpkq81lo
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z5pet9JudNbAEDmQc2xhSAAAAAg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z5pet9JudNbAEDmQc2xhSAAAAAg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z5pet9JudNbAEDmQc2xhSAAAAAg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/28/ofcoms_broadband_switching_plans/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/27/who_me/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/06/eutelsat_oneweb_leap_year/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/24/american_airlines_grounds/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z5pet9JudNbAEDmQc2xhSAAAAAg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.baesystems.com/en-uk/bishopton/history-of-bishopton-rof
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: UPSes are a common feature of...
I realise the scale is slightly different but I got sick of UPS self-destructing a couple of years ago and switched to my own cobbled together setups.
My office is powered through a Victron inverter with szeable LifePo4 batteries and a couple of decent solar panels; it runs everything in the office off the solar if enough sun, failing which it uses the grid or seamlessly switches to battery power if there's a power cut (I have the heaters on smart switches which turn them off when the grid drops out).
The internet feed is from a different building so it has its own even more cobbled-together (but reliable) arrangement; another 12v LifePo4 battery which feeds the ONT via a buck converter and also the router (and from there a WAP) through a 12v to 48v PoE injector. The battery is permanently connected to a Victron smart charger which is set to keep the battery at "float", when the power goes off everything just carries on running from the battery and when the power comes back the charger automatically brings the battery back to the correct charge.
I'm very happy to be rid of very expensive and yet unreliable UPS with hopeless run times and prone-to-cooking lead acid batteries...
Re: UPSes are a common feature of...
Very impressive set up, AJ MacLeod. If my power goes off I boil some water for a cuppa on the gas hob, put my feet up and listen to some music.
El Reg should know that customer services in Brexit Britain only share information on a need to know basis to respect privacy and national security. Anyone calling themselves customers or journalists do not need to know, especially if the service is 'critical infrastructure'. They might be the Russians, the Chinese or the French in disguise.
Re: UPSes are a common feature of...
They might be the Russians, the Chinese or the French in disguise.
I believe they weed them out by only picking up the phone after the caller has been on hold for at least an hour - Johnnie Foreigner doesn't do this queueing lark.
Re: UPSes are a common feature of...
A few years back we bought three 5kVA Dell-branded APC UPS (now Schneider) and they were useless! In the first year two had been replaced under warranty as they self-destructed during a self-test, we ended up with an extra 'spare' that Dell never asked for back, and within 3 years of operation all 5 were dead.
We since bought Riello UPS (similar 5kVA single phase size) and the three units we have so far have been good, and typically we test them weekly now when running the new backup generator so they are forced to switch back/forward at regular intervals. Web interface sucks as usual, but is not significantly worse than APC...
Re: UPSes are a common feature of...
Way back when I was wearing shorts and Clark's shoes, the local telephone exchange had an open day.
I found the most exciting part to be in the basement which, IIRC, was just a big open lead acid battery.
Falling in notwithstanding, these things seem a lot more reliable and resilient
https://www.ringbell.co.uk/ukwmo/Page240.htm
UPSes are a common feature of...
... extended outages.
They are rather prone either to not starting or to emitting magic smoke when the load suddenly switches, defying attempts to switch it back. I do wonder if they're always worth the expense.