O2 and BE acknowledge home broadband service problems

Both O2 and BE Broadband have aired caution to their users that they may experience home broadband service problems this weekend. From 8am on Saturday 21 November to 8am on Sunday 22nd November broadband users may experience congestion on their service due to “major trackside maintenance work” on the suppliers' fibre links.

Unfortunately, as the work will be carried out network-wide this means potentially all BE Broadband and O2 customers may be affected although those in Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Nottingham, Reading and surrounding areas may be affected more than others. Both providers have apologised for the inconvenience this may cause customers and pledged to keep disruption to a minimum.

Earlier in the week, BE Broadband's sibling internet service provider O2 also made an announcement on it's home broadband access network regarding congestion problems.

At the end of October, O2 acknowledged the implementation of a new traffic management policy set up to “greatly improve your experience in the evenings”. It's now admitted its throttling system isn't working: “... this change has had limited effect date,” said the provider. “We are working hard to implement a more effective solution as a priority.”

On 18 November a service update from O2 explained: “In addition to the Traffic Management we've implemented, we're also working on a permanent fix to go live in the coming few weeks. We're grateful for your patience and we expect that you will see an improvement within the next two weeks. We're sorry.”