BroadLink is a wireless carrier partner for a group of customers in Santa Rosa and some surrounding areas. BroadLink has had a failure of a critical component in the core of their network, and they are currently attempting repair.
We have scheduled a meeting for an hour and a half from now for next status update. At this point, we have no realistic estimated time to repair to offer for them.
We remain guardedly hopeful that BroadLink will find a way to work around the failed component. That said, customers for whom DSL is available who wish to transition to DSL can begin that process by contacting Sonic.net sales
Update: A workaround has been devised, and if all goes well, we expect to see BroadLink back online within the hour.
[…] mentioned in the status blog (formerly system MOTD), BroadLink Communications had a system failure in a critical component of […]
So sorry that Sonic is stuck in the middle of this but thanks for getting us back online. It was the catalyst for getting us to switch to Sonic DSL next week.
It was great that some of the old BL folks were able to get together and help us resolve it! See some narrative and pic here: http://corp.sonic.net/ceo/2008/08/27/punt/
Are you saying here that the bl wireless network will just be allowed to continue to deteriorate and put the existing subscribers at risk for future extended unplanned outages because it doesn’t have the structure or tools to manage it properly like a real service provider network should? Have you considered selling it? Or have you considered maybe talking to other wireless broadband providers and soliciting proposals to get the core issues fixed so it’s no longer a support burden?
You know there is a successful wireless broadband provider just north of you that has a substantially large network with perhaps 1000 subs and that does have solutions to the problems you mentioned such as centralized provisioning, support, suspension and disconnection, and just might know some magic that could help you and your customers achieve a higher level of service and stability than what you are currently. And epically, if you’re left with pulling together former employees of a defunct company to fix core equipment failures when they occur, I would say that the time to think about it is now rather than later.
Mike,
It’s not our network to fix, it’s owned by Broadlink. I don’t yet know what their plans are at this point.
Which other wireless provider are you referring to? I’m not aware of anyone of that scale in the area.
-Dane