I have had news through that due to a fire in a major BT internet exchange in London, many banks payment systems have gone offline. This is affecting many card payment systems across the web..

so if you are buying stuff online and the payment keeps getting declined... this is why...No idea how long it will take them to get it sorted... but it must be costing businesses millions!


Some info here:
No mention there that most of the banks run from the effected nodes... nice one!

[Edited on 31/3/10 by tegwin][url=http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23820825-london-broadband-and-telephone-services-hit-after-fire-at-bt-exchange.do]HERE[/url ]

[Edited on 31/3/10 by tegwin]

Info from one of my providers. Doesn't give much more info though I'm afraid.

Chris

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Wed 31/03/2010 10:35We are aware of a fire at a BT site in North Paddington, London and this is likely to affect the routing of calls that would have passed through that node. This will affect all communication providers that route through this node.
The traffic concerned should automatically reroute but we have a contingency plan that will be put in place with BT if this is not effective.

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quote:

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Wed 31/03/2010 11:51Power to the BT exchange site has been isolated due to the fire. Our contingency plans are allowing calls to route successfully, however please be aware that any ported numbers that were originally hosted on an exchange in the North Paddington area will fail because the BT exchange is unable to forward them

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I hear it is a flood not a fire

Major flooding at a BT exchange building has hit broadband and telephone services in parts of London - and possibly other parts of the UK.

A BT spokesman said: “Following flooding at a BT exchange in the Paddington area, customers in parts of North and West London may be experiencing a loss of broadband and/or telephone service.

Yep, just been tryign to buy some bonnet catches and gave it 3 goes only to find 3 invoices... YIKES!

Anyway they have confirmed that none of them have gone through due t oSagepay being offline due to the fire... PHEW!

This was the mail I got:

We'd like to update you on an external issue which is effecting nationwide telecomms/datacomms.

British Telecom has confirmed a fire at their Exchange in the Paddington area of London. This has impacted a huge number of UK businesses, including Sage Pay and the major banks that route transactions through the Exchange. Sage Pay has taken action on your behalf by quickly moving transaction processing to our backup data centre. However, the issue has affected connectivity to some banks who rely on the exchange and we are currently unable to process via those banks at this time.

Please note, as banks and payment providers look for alternative transaction routing solutions away from the Paddington Exchange, this could create some general capacity issues, resulting in transaction 'time-outs'.


[Edited on 31/3/10 by coozer]

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Originally posted by YQUSTA
I hear it is a flood not a fire

Major flooding at a BT exchange building has hit broadband and telephone services in parts of London - and possibly other parts of the UK.

A BT spokesman said: “Following flooding at a BT exchange in the Paddington area, customers in parts of North and West London may be experiencing a loss of broadband and/or telephone service.

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I dont understand this...

the internet is suposed to be a "web".... one node failing should NOT disrupt services.... or am I missing something here?

Have BT put all their eggs in one exchange and royally screwed up?

Tryed to pay and book for a driving test[ Dvla] but it will not let you because of the fire

Just a thought will anyone get there wages this week if banks can't pay out etc

[Edited on 31/3/10 by jacko]

BT like most network providers would use diverse routing, but in the case of a main switch site going down you could take down the internet nodes or enough network equipment to overload the diversity put in place.

Apart from BT and Kingston communication is there any other companies that do line telephones ?
maybe BT has to big monopoly

even if you purchase through other suppliers non BT they often rout through BT exchanges or use BT for the 'End loop'

Sounds like it was one of BT access points onto the 'Trunk' system.

Regards

Agric8

Update from my supplier this morning:

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Several million litres of water remain in the basement of the North Paddington exchange and until that is pumped out electrical power cannot be restored. Other than issues with numbers hosted in the affected area, our contingency plans are operating well and will remain in place until full interconnect services are restored.

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