We have changed centrex dialling such that calls to 101 and 111 will no longer be recognised as centrex dialling.

I.e. if you have three digit local (centrex) dialling, and extensions 111 and 101, we suggest you reassign these internal numbers.

101 and 111 now route to a carrier for non emergency police and HNS direct.

As you know, you cannot use extensions 112 or 999 for internall calling anyway (emergency services numbers).

Sorry for any inconvenience caused.

We have been notified of the below planned maintenance window affecting some BE DSL connections:

DOWNEND 

FISHPONDS 

WINTERBOURNE 

FROME 

WARMINSTER 

TROWBRIDGE 

MELKSHAM 

KINGSMEAD 

COMBE DOWN 

KINGSWOOD 

BITTON 

NORTH 

WESTBURY-ON-TRYM 

AVONMOUTH 

CLEVEDON 

NAILSEA 

PORTISHEAD 

CALDICOT 

CHEPSTOW 

CHIPPING SODBURY 

THORNBURY 

WORLE 

EASTON 

EASTVILLE 

FILTON 

HENBURY 

WEST 

STOKE BISHOP 

SOUTH 

BISHOPSWORTH 

MIDSOMER NORTON RMCUX 

RADSTOCK 

STROUD 

HARDWICKE 

CHELTENHAM 

BISHOPS CLEEVE 

BARNWOOD 

CHURCHDOWN 

We have been notified of the below planned maintenance window affecting some BE DSL connections:

NEW SOUTHGATE

MUSWELL HILL

NORTH FINCHLEY

POPLAR

TOTTENHAM

DEPTFORD

KENTISH TOWN

KINGS CROSSCLLOW

HENDON

HOUNSLOW

BLOOMSBURY AKA HOWLAND ST

HAMPSTEAD

LORDS

MAIDA VALE

MARYLEBONE

PRIMROSE HILL

SOHO AKA GERRARD STREET

SOUTHBANK

We've noticed that some new DATA SIMs are requiring the APN to be set to 'm2m.aql.net' as otherwise they will only get an internet connection in to Three, and not in to us.

Normally an APN is not required, and only needed if roaming.

This seems to only be affecting SIMs activated since 1st May 2013.

Our carriers are looking in to the reason for this and will update us shortly.

This looks to have been caused by a change in the Three network, however Three partly reverted their change. They will finish this on the night of 8th May.

The carrier have made changed to try to fix this but we are still seeing SIMs  onnecting in to Three rather than being relayed in to us. We are chasing this.

The carrier completed further work on this over night, and it appears that affected SIMs are now working without the need for the APN. We've tested an affected SIM succsessfully in the office.

We have been notified of the below planned maintenance window affecting some O2 DSL connections:

Date - 09/05/2013

Exchanges affected:

Woodford (LNWFD)
Walthamstow (LNWTH)
Eastleigh (STEASTL)
Bishops Waltham (STBISHW)
air Oak (STFAIRO)
Woolston (STWLSTN)
Bursledon (STBURSN)
Fawly (STFAWLY)
Hamble (STHAMBL)
Hythe (STHYTHE)
Moorhill (STMRHLL)
Chandlers Ford (STCFORD)
Leagrave (SMLEA)
Flitwick (SMFK)
Dunstable (SMDB)
Houghton Regis (SMHUR)
Braintree (EABNT)
STRATFORD (LNSTF)
WANSTEAD (LNWSD)
WOOLWICH (LSWOO)
EAST GRINSTEAD (NDEGR)
COPTHORNE (NDCOP)
SHIRLEY (STSHRLY)
ROWNHAMS (STRWNMS)
HAMPTON (STHMPTN)
BASSETT (STBSETT)
HORSHAM CARFAX (SDHRSHM)
SOUTHWATER (SDSTHWT)
AYLESBURY (SMAY)
PRINCES RISBOROUGH (SMPRB)
WENDOVER (SMWE)
GREENWICH (LSGRNW)
TOTTON (STTOTTN)
ROMSEY (STROMSY)

We have been notified of the below planned maintenance window affecting some O2 DSL connections:

Date - 10/05/2013

 Exchanges affected:

SMBF - BEDFORD
SMAP - AMPTHILL
SMKT - KEMPSTON
SMSA - SANDY
SMBB - BANBURY
LWRAD - RADLETT
LWGAR - GARSTON
SMAM - AMERSHAM
SMGM - GREAT MISSENDEN
SMBA - BRADWELL ABBEY
LWBUS - BUSHLEY HEATH
SMBK - BERKHAMSTED
THCW - CROWTHORNE
THY - YATELEY
THRG - READING CENTRAL
LNSTB - ST ALBANS
THC - CAMBERLEY
THWM - WOKINGHAM

We have had a few issues with RADIUS of late, and we have some changes in LNS code and RADIUS server code which should help to resolve these issues, and also resolve the cause of the last time we had an LNS crash.

We are planning to introduce the changes gradually during this week so that the impact of any problems will be reduced, and only effect some customers. We are not really expecting problems, just being cautious. Today we are testing changes on our test LNS which does have a handful of customers connected.

I do apologise in advance for any issues. Mostly RADIUS issues result in free (unmetered) usage, and in some cases extra PPP restarts.

In general we'll be making changes evening or early morning rather than during the day.

Thinks did not go quite as planned this evening when one of the test boxes upset RADIUS slightly and resulted in some PPP restarts. We think we have it sorted now so we can start to roll this out over the next few days.

We have been notified of the below planned maintenance window affecting some DSL connections, the exchanges affected: are:

MITCHAM
ORPINGTON
PURLEY

We apologise in advance to customers calling in and experiencing what sounds like loud drilling. We'll do our best to cope, but may need to call you back at times.

In other news, we'll having air-conditioning installed and working by the end of the week.

We have not done an LNS switch for some time, and it is usually a routine thing when we do s/w upgrades so not even posted on planned works. However, after the issues with a BT fibre yesterday resulted in some unexpected effects, we are planning some updates.

As some of you will know, the same effect, only lasting a few minutes, happened today as well. This was caused by a minor configuration change, and was unexpected.

It seems that we have found what triggers these problems. We need to investigate in more detail, and we will be doing tests on the test LNS. When we have a proper fix we will update the live LNSs. In the mean time we will avoid the config change that caused this.

However, right now, one of the LNSs is "stuck' in this broken state. It is only affecting some lines, and they have been moved to another LNS already. We will however be clearing the remaining lines (around 10% of customers) this evening. We can then restart the LNS in the morning and be back to normal.

The effect will be a PPP restart and should only be a few seconds downtime for those affected (but depends on your router).

It looks like we managed to rectify the problem without clearing lines off the LNS or restarting it. This provides more clues as to the cause. Thank you for your patience.

We are doing a few other upgrades before 6pm though, but they should not have any noticable impact.

BE lines on the MOORGATE exchange and currently down due to BT performing an upgrade on the exchange, the work is taking place between 11:00 and 17:00 however we expecty service will be restored before this time.

The work has been complete.

Some data SIMs may disconnect between 01:00:00 and 03:00:00 on the morning of 2013-03-08 due to a change being made within Three's network. This window should be considered an at risk period.

We will be upgrading some routers over the weekend - not all on the same day, and starting a routine upgrade of LNSs over several days. This should not have an impact.

The first batch of upgrades are complete.

As those following my blog may have noticed, we are moving staff around in the office - we have a new room all set up, and the heating finally fixed, and new carpet tiles and so on.

During the rest of this week we will be moving people in to the new office, which means there may be some disruption to call handling. We are obviously working to ensure everything runs smoothly with minimal impact on customer services.

Please do bear with us if specific staff are not available for short periods while they move desks.

As part of O2's network upgrade to "Converged Core", we have been notified of a series of outages affecting the migration of their exchanges onto this new network. This is planned to take place over the next 12 months, and will involve every exchange being moved to new backhaul links.

We have been notified of a planned outage that will affect connections at the exchanges listed below. We anticipate that this will cause an outage of between 2 and 30 minutes and is expected to take place during the specified AM or PM slot:

19/04/2013
SSRED: Redcliff - AM (9am - 2pm)
SSWES: West - AM (9am - 2pm)
SSSTO: Stoke Bishop - AM (9am - 2pm)
SSSOU: South - AM (9am - 2pm)
SSBIS: Bishopsworth - AM (9am - 2pm)
SSWHI: Whitchurch - AM (11am - 6pm)

As part of O2's network upgrade to "Converged Core", we have been notified of a series of outages affecting the migration of their exchanges onto this new network. This is planned to take place over the next 12 months, and will involve every exchange being moved to new backhaul links.

We have been notified of a planned outage that will affect connections at the exchanges listed below. We anticipate that this will cause an outage of between 2 and 30 minutes and is expected to take place during the specified AM or PM slot:

18/04/2013
SSRAD: Radstock - AM (9am - 2pm)
SSTRO: Trowbridge - AM (9am - 2pm)
SSMEL: Melksham - AM (9am - 2pm)
SSKMD: Kingsmead - AM (9am - 2pm)
SSKWD: Kingswood - AM (9am - 2pm)
SSNOR: North - AM (11am - 6pm)
SSWOT: Westbury On Trym - AM (11am - 6pm)

As part of O2's network upgrade to "Converged Core", we have been notified of a series of outages affecting the migration of their exchanges onto this new network. This is planned to take place over the next 12 months, and will involve every exchange being moved to new backhaul links.

We have been notified of a planned outage that will affect connections at the exchanges listed below. We anticipate that this will cause an outage of between 2 and 30 minutes and is expected to take place during the specified AM or PM slot:

17/04/2013
SSAVO: Avonmouth - AM (9am - 2pm)
SSALM: Almondsbury - AM (9am - 2pm)
SSCSY: Chipping Sodbury - AM (9am - 2pm)
SSTHO: Thornbury - AM (9am - 2pm)
SSDOW: Downend - AM (9am - 2pm)
SSWIB: Winterbourne - AM (9am - 2pm)
SSFIS: Fishponds - AM (9am - 2pm)
SSEAS: Easton - AM (9am - 2pm)
SSEAV: Eastville - AM (9am - 2pm)
SSFLT: Filton - PM (9am - 2pm)
STSOTON: Southampton - PM (11am - 6pm)
SSHEN: Henbury - PM (11am - 6pm)
SSFRO: Frome - PM (11am - 6pm)
SSWAR: Warminister - PM (11am - 6pm)
SSMID: Midsomer Borton Rmcux - PM (11am - 6pm)

We have been notified of a planned outage that will affect connections at the exchanges listed below. We anticipate that this will cause an outage of between 2 and 30 minutes and is expected to take place during the specified AM or PM slot:

25/02/2013 STSHRLY: Shirley - AM (9am - 1pm) STRWNMS: Rownhams - AM (9am - 1pm) STTOTTN: Totton - AM (9am - 1pm) STROMSY: Romsey - AM (9am - 1pm) STBSETT: Bassett - AM (9am - 1pm) STFAWLY: Fawley - AM (9am - 1pm) STBURSN: Bursledon - AM (9am - 1pm) STHMPTN: Hampton - PM (11am - 5pm) STHYTHE: Hythe - PM (11am - 5pm)

26/02/2013 STMRHLL: Moorhill - AM (9am - 1pm) STCFORD: Chandlers Ford - AM (9am - 1pm) STLOCKH: Locks Heath - AM (9am - 1pm) STLYMTN: Lymington - AM (9am - 1pm) SMLEA: Leagrave - AM (9am - 1pm) SMFK: Flitwick - AM (9am - 1pm) STSOTON: Southampton - AM/PM (9am - 5pm)

27/02/2013 SMAY: Aylesbury - AM (9am - 1pm) SMBT: Milton Keynes - AM (9am - 1pm) SMDB: Dunstable - AM (9am - 1pm) SMSA: Sandy - AM (9am - 1pm) SMKT: Kempston - AM (9am - 1pm) SMLBD: Leighton Buzzard - PM (11am - 5pm) SMBF: Bedford - PM (11am - 5pm)

28/02/2013 SMBB: Banbury - AM (9am - 1pm) SMBY: Brackley - AM (9am - 1pm) SMBU: Buckingham - AM (9am - 1pm) SMBA: Bradwell Abbey - AM (9am - 1pm) SMAP: Ampthill - PM (11am - 5pm) SMNP: Newport Pagnell - PM (11am - 5pm) SMSSF: Stony Stratford - PM (11am - 5pm) SMSU: Shenley Church End - PM (11am - 5pm) SMWV: Wolverton - PM (11am - 5pm)

01/03/2013 LWBUS: Bushey Heath - AM (9am - 1pm) LWWAT: Watford - AM (9am - 1pm) LNBGN: Bowmansgreen - AM (9am - 1pm) SMCSH: Chesham - AM (9am - 1pm) SMAM: Amersham - AM (9am - 1pm) SMLH: Letchworth - AM (9am - 1pm) SMHI: Hitchin - AM (9am - 1pm) SMHUR: Houghton Regis - AM (9am - 1pm) LNSTB: St Albans - AM/PM (9am - 5pm) LWRAD: Radlett - PM (11am - 5pm) SMLT: Luton - PM (11am - 5pm)

Thinkbroadband have conducted a massive survey which asks a lot of important questions about the way people view their broadband. Well worth a read.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband-survey.html

There are some impressive stats relating to AAISP, e.g. pages 28 (value), 29 (speed), 31 (reliability), 32 (customer service), even 34 (social media use), 38 (loyalty).

However, the survey covers much more than just rating ISPs, such as people's views on parental controls for Internet access, how long they spend accessing the Internet per day, and what things are most important to them...

Well done everyone at Thinkbroadband - it is an impressive survey. And thank you to our customers who completed the survey

We recently added a box on our Telephony price page where you can put in a phone number and it will look up the cost when calling via our VoIP service. See: http://aa.net.uk/telecoms-prices.html

Please see http://status.aa.net.uk/1750 for information regarding planned work that will affect web hosting on the evening of March 7th.

As per http://status.aa.net.uk/apost.cgi?incident=1622 our Mobile Voice SIM service is being withdrawn at the end of April DATA SIMS are unaffected by this.

We do hope to offer a new service, maybe later in the year, that will work in a similar way - we have some possible candidates, but nothing we can set up yet to replace the current service.

Customers fall in to different categories...

1. Some SIMs will be SIP2SIP, meaning that the SIM has no number, but is used registered to some other device such as their PABX or asterisk box. These will simply stop. We cannot offer a replacement service.

2. Some SIMs will be on a normal (01/02/03) number. They will stop as a mobile but the number can be retained on normal £1/month terms and be directed as needed. The service allows SIP phones, and diverts (also ring) as required. you could, for example, divert to a new mobile number so incoming calls still work for them. There is a cost for the mobile divert at our normal rates (5p/min+VAT for mobiles now).

3. Some SIMs will be on one of our 07 numbers. These are rarer. They can keep the number. However, OFCOM rules require the call to have a wireless leg. This means we cannot simply send to SIP or a landline. What we have just changed is a system to allow these numbers to work if being diverted (also ring) to another 07 number. This will allow divert to another mobile (and so be within OFCOM rules). They will be the same £1/month service. Again, there is a cost to divert to mobile. Please do contact sales for further help as required.

The actual terminiation date of voice SIMs will be 30th April 2013 - NOT 31st March as previosly published - sorry for the confusion.

We have received this from our suppliers regarding how the 'wholesale' arm of O2/Be is affected:

Telefonica have today announced the sale of the O2 Home Broadband and BE customer bases to Sky.

http://news.o2.co.uk/?press-release=sky-to-acquire-telefonica-uks-broadband-and-fixed-line-telephony-business

We would like to confirm that only the O2 Home Broadband and BE Consumer customers have been sold to Sky.

O2 Wholesale is being retained by Telefonica and will maintain its access to the network. We have been given clarification on the following from O2 Wholesale:

    The deal is subject to regulatory approval

    Sky will be taking over ownership and day to day operation of the LLU network

    Sky will integrate the current ISAMs into their network

    O2 Wholesale will become a customer of SKY with a wholesale agreement in place so that they can continue to provide wholesale services to partners as normal

That being said, we've asked for a more detailed clarification on the matter. 

No more news regarding this, however it is to be considered business as usual regarding Be Wholesale lines.

We'll update this as and when we get updates, but from our point of view the service is unchanged.

We will be performing a swap of the core network switches in our Maidenhead datacentre on the afternoon of Sunday 10th February.

The work is expected to take up to half an hour, during which there will be periods of time when service is affected.

The affected services will be:

Email, both incoming and outgoing
VoIP calls
Ethernet services terminated in Maidenhead
Web page hosting
Control panel and Billing system access
Customer hosted servers

General internet connectivity over DSL and Ethernet terminated in London will be unaffected by this work.

This staus page will be updated during the work.

This work will be done a little earlier than initially scheduled. The work will take place between 12:30pm and 2pm, but actual outage is only expected to be a couple of minutes.

We have reduced rates to major UK mobile networks to 5p/min (+VAT)

As you know there are some warnings for bad weather which may mean we do not have the full complement of staff in the offices on some dasys - as usual we are arranging that staff can, where sensible, work from home, so as to try and ensure the usual levels of cover.

Please bear with us, especially right at the start of the day, if there are delays answering calls and emails, as staff discover whether they are able to get to the office or not.

In an effort to move our services to use a single domain (aa.net.uk), we are now running our billing system from https://accounts.aa.net.uk/aal/

We have finally created a new World of Warcraft Guild for the Horde on Thunderhorn: AAISP Darkside

Brand new guild so no rank yet but customers welcome to join.

As some of you may know, we have SSL certificates on many of our servers and services that make use of CACert as a certificate authority. Some time ago we changed the certificates for our accounts pages and ordering pages, and now we have also obtained certificates for many of our web servers under aa.net.uk. These use a "known" CA and so no longer cause the same warning in browsers if you do not have the CACert root certificate. They are no more secure as a result of this change, and in some ways are slightly less secure, but this avoids the warnings and so we have bowed to the "protection racket" that is certificate signing. The new certificates do not cover use of aaisp.net.uk based domains.

Ironically this change has caused some concern amongst customers. However, it should generally mean less queries on the matter.

As a result we are gradually changing URLs used for some things, e.g. ordering is now on order.aa.net.uk not www.s-s-l.co.uk. We will soon be changing the accounts pages over as well, probably to accounts.aa.net.uk, but wil be keeping the old URL as well for the time being.

At the moment SSL based email servers (web and TLS on SMTP, IMAP, etc) are not changing, and will continue with CACert based certificates.

in the long term we expect DANE to take over from CA certificates, and we plan to have proper DANE support for our secure web sites soon.

Sorry for any concern caused.

The 'per IP stats' usages pages are not working very well at the moment. Some customers are not seeing any usage, and some are seeing very little usage, and others are seeing correct amounts of usage!

This is being looked in to.

This does not affect the 'Line' usage or any billing based usage records. 

We are sorry for how long this has been ongoing.
We are still trying to resolve the issue, however it is taking a lot longer than we expected.

We do not currently have an ETA however we will update this status once we have further news.

The Home::1 tariff originally had a complicated set of caveats for leaving the service within one year (paying for router, min term of 12 months on FTTC, and cease charges if ceasing).

We have decided to change this to a simple 6 month min term with no catches. This is a slight gamble for us, but we think it helps a lot to make this a simple tariff.

Obviously those customers that have signed up before this change can choose to stick to the previous arrangement instead if they want to leave.

We have been automatically posting updates from our Status page to our facebook page, however, we've decided to separate out our Status updates from the other posts on Facebook. So, from now on Status posts will be on a separate Facebook page, AAISPStatus:

http://www.facebook.com/AAISPStatus

Do 'Like' the page if you want to be kept up to date with Status posts whilst on Facebook.

One of our webmail servers is being rebooted, this is similar to the problem yesterday. Once it's back up we'll be considering what to do with it so as to stop this problem happening again.

This will affect some Squirrelmail users, and all Roundcube users.

It's back up.

We have tweaked the new Home::1 tariff, making the entry level 50GB, and the two higher usage levels 150GB and 250GB, with all the same pricing.

See my blog for me details on the logic of making this change.

We have applied this to existing customers for this month's usage quota.

We are currently experiencing problems in the office meaning or connection to the internet is down.

We are back.

Customers have asked for ways to manage usage levels on data SIMs and we are looking in to ways to do this using the same technology as used for the Home::1 tariff.

At present we are now able to set a monthly quota on a SIM which requires the accounts password to add more quota on the fly.

In the longer term we may sell pre-pay SIM packages if customers are interested.

Right now we are interested in anyone wanting to trial this quota system. It is not a change to pricing or billing in any way - just a way to ensure you don't get a surprise bill at the end of the month. It could be ideal for SIMs in kids iPads, etc. We're also working on a way to notify people when their remaining quota reaches a level.

Contact the trials team and let us know what sort of monthly quota you want to set.

It seems the issue with odd DD notices was not as simple we we expected and a number of customers have DD notices for collections which are not on the right dates. We are clearing and re-issuing all DD notices today.

I do apologise for any inconvenience caused.

A small number of people recieved a blank Direct Debit notice when they do not in fact pay by Direct Debit. Obviously this is a mistake and payment will not be collected from such people. Pay as normal.

See the following page for the press release:
http://aa.net.uk/news-2012-home1.html

(New customers can order via a simple 1 page form.)

We now send advisory emails when data usage on a SIM has reached a certain amount.

It's only an advisory email and we do not block or cap the service in any way, it's just to let you know.

We'll send the email only once a month, once the level has been reached. The default is £10 but existing SIMs that have used more than that have had their level suitably increased. Customers can can change the level on control pages.

http://www.aa.net.uk/news-2012-christmas.html

We are pleased to confirm that customers on our standard units based tariffs will again benefit from a Christmas special rate between Christmas and New Year.

The three normal working days between Christmas and New Year will be a Christmas special rate which consumes no units regardless of the amount of usage. That is 27th Dec, 28th Dec, and 31st Dec. The 29th Dec and 30th Dec being normal Weekend rates. The 25th Dec, 26th Dec, 1st Jan, and (for lines in Scotland) 2nd Jan, are the new Holiday rate (same usage levels as weekends).

Customers on our new Home::1 tariff (which we expect to have launched by then) have usage allowances that can be used any time of day and day of the year, so there is no special rate for Christmas. However, we will be adding an extra 3GB to your December monthly quota on Christmas morning.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all at A&A

We're please to say the trials are going well. We expect to formally "launch" the new tariff next week at least for existing customers. I'd like to thank those that have come forward for the trail. This has ben most helpful in testing the systems, and I am rather reassured that many people are actually keen to pay a few more pounds a month for the reassurance and simplicity of the new tariff. This bodes well for it being commercially viable.

Anyone else wishing to move to the new tariff, retrospectively applied for November, is welcome to ask me on irc (RevK) and I can sort the switch over.

We'll post more details next week, and how new customers can order as soon as we have the ordering system in place.

There have been some times recently where customers have had their email accounts compromised and used by a third party to send out lots of spam through our servers. This results in some of our servers being added to third party black lists which causes problems.

Whilst we have monitoring in place and do act when this happens we have implemented some extra spam checking on our outgoing email servers.

This mainly affects authenticated email, and will result in IP addresses being fire-walled for a period of time if it seen sending multiple spam messages.

We'd appreciate feedback if legitimate email is wrongly classified by mistake.

We have decided to extend the new Home::1 tariff to 20CN lines as well.

Let us know if you are interested in the trial.

http://aa.net.uk/broadband-home1.html

We are planning a new tariff for home users, called Home::1, and we hope to launch this new tariff by Christmas.

Details are on http://aa.net.uk/broadband-home1.html

The details are not quite finalised yet. We are however interested in a small number of customers that would like to change to the new tariff. We'd switch you to this retropectively for November, which helps us test the change over to start of new month, and the billing, and (if anyone is close to their quota) the top-up system.

Contact the trials team on the email address on that web page if interested.

We are happy to announced BT have finally lifted the remaining MBORC areas.

We're upgrading the wiki software (and various extensions) on our customer facing wiki - http://wiki.aa.org.uk. There may be occasions where you'll see error messages or pages being unavailable this morning.

This has been completed. Unfortunately the WYSISWYG editor has had to be removed for the time being, but a 'history' line has been added to the top of pages showing the pages you've recently been on.

There are likely to be changes to mobile voice SIM services in six months time. We are currently assessing the announcement from our suppliers and should be able to provide more details over the next few days. However, we do not expect changes to be necessary for at least 6 months.

There are no changes to data SIMs expected.

The details we have so far is that it looks like our supplier will be stopping the voice SIMs in just over 6 months time. However, we don't have all of the details yet, or whether there are options to keep SIMs working after that date.

There are a number of possible ways for us to address this, and we are looking to find other carriers that could offer a similar service to us. The ncie thing is, that if we do find an alternative service, the way the service works would stay basically the same (at least for calls) and not involve any number changes.

In any case, even if the voice SIMs can no longer be provided, we can direct existing numbers to another mobile number for incoming calls at a small cost.

So, at the moment, we know voice SIMs are safe for 6 months, and hope to have more news soon on the ongoing service after that point.

Voice SIMs are still available for purchase - there is a warning as part of the ordering page that services is not be available after April 2013. We have also reduced the cost of voice SIMs to £5+VAT from today.

I personally use the voice SIMs for my mobile, and integrate with the office phone system. It is immensely useful and will be a great shame if I cannot continue this service. As such, I have made it a priority to investigate and test alternative suppliers and services before any changes to the existing voice SIM service. Adrian. Director.

BT have announced that the following areas are under MBORC (Matters beyond our reasonable control): 

Northumberland
Wearside
Durham & Tees Valley
York
Bradford & the Dales
Leeds & West Yorkshire
South Yorkshire and Chesterfield
North Lincoln
Cumbria
North Manchester
South Manchester
Merseyside
Lancashire
Derby & Nottingham
Leicester
Birmingham & Black Country
Mid Wales & Shrewsbury
North Wales
Stoke & Chester
NE Scotland
Central Scotland
SE Scotland
Aylesbury
Northampton
Southampton

The impact this will have is that any jobs that involve a BT engineer are likely to take longer to progress, eg: Installs / SFIs.

We will update once BT give us more news as to when this is likely to be lifted. 

As per: http://aa.net.uk/news-2012-09-bh.html

We are pleased to announce that from today all bank holidays and public holidays will be treated in the same way as evenings and weekends for all of our broadband line customers. This means that the usage rate on these days will be metered at 50GB per unit.

We are proud to be an ISP that listens to our customers, and that makes changes in line with their suggestions if it is possible for us to do so. In this case, taking into account the 154 votes from our ideas site, and also feedback we received from customers after the Royal Wedding and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, we have made this change today.

Looking forward, although there are no huge national events in the near future, we hope customers will find it useful for watching streamed television or movies on demand, or doing those data-heavy operating system updates, on their days off.

Notes

This will only apply to broadband line usage, not VoIP, or L2TP, or mobile or anything else. Public and bank holidays are different in Scotland and Northern Ireland, so we use the line postcode to work out which applies. The first example will be 30th Nov for St Andrew's day relating only to Scottish lines.