back to article It's even GRIMMER up North after MEGA SKY BROADBAND OUTAGE

Life in the famously grim north of England became even more appalling today following a massive Sky broadband outage. Sky's service via a number of exchanges across the North West has collapsed, crippling broadband connections for customers living in the badlands surrounding Manchester and Liverpool. The provider said the …

  1. Mark Southee

    I suspect you mean Frodsham, not Frodshaw. Do try and keep up!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Bromborough, Eastham, Neston, Birkenhead, Claughton, Rock Ferry, Wallasey, Heswall, Hoylake, Irby - so that would be the Wirral then.

      And I also think you meant Stockport, not Stockpoort.

    2. tin 2

      Indeed. Let's pick the one that doesn't exist at all to take the piss out of :)

      1. SuperTim

        I did appear to be affected overnight...

        but a reboot of the old router at 7am and Hey Presto... my decidedly average broadband is back to its normal average self. Not sure why this would still be news.

        1. Phil_Evans

          Re: I did appear to be affected overnight...

          Given that ElReg obviously put the intern on copy, mis-spelled places and all that, were you relating to "Hey, Preston! My average....etc" or am I too far west/south/soft/etc?

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Obvious Joke??

      Intentionally mis-spelled names as the locals undoubtedly can't pronounce it properly anyway??

      North of Milton Keynes the accent is so thick most people can't distinguish it from French anyway, bloody savages.

      1. david willis

        Re: Obvious Joke??

        I live in Grimsargh..

        Its a small village between Longridge and Preston..

        Now say it like a pirate would, then tell me us Northerners don't have a sense of humour..

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Obvious Joke??

        "North of Milton Keynes the accent is so thick most people can't distinguish it from French anyway, bloody savages."

        South of Milton Keynes the natives are so thick most people can't distinguish them from bloody savages - fixed

        1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
          Thumb Up

          Re: Obvious Joke??

          The English Isles - positively Celtic, with hint of Norman barbarism.

  2. SimonL

    I can't work out the heck this report is on about. It talks of a broadband outage but only mentions Sky. So was it just Sky customers or all ADSL customers?

    Thankfully I'm on Virgin/NTL/Cable & Wireless/Nynex/whatever they are called today!!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "It talks of a broadband outage but only mentions Sky. So was it just Sky customers or all ADSL customers?"

      Sky's fibre customers, if I'm reading it right. They do offer ADSL ("Broadband Connect") but it's in a very small area of their advertising blurb, unless you check whether you can get the great stuff that's plastered everywhere else :)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Broadband connect" is their ADSL product provided over the BT network and is available to everyone, and it's crap because they refuse to pay BT for enough capacity. It's basically there so they can say to the rural plebs that they can take broadband from them.

        A bit like how Virgin offers a dire ADSL connection for people not in their cabled areas, so that they can't get out of contracts because they're moving to a non-cabled house.

        They also offer LLU ADSL to people who are connected to a telephone exchange with their equipment installed, probably "unlimited" or whatever it is - which is apparently a much better service than connect (when it is working). Then they offer fibre as well.

  3. Slacker@work

    Wythenshawe

    Famous for....Shameless - it was the Chatsworth estate and needed no set dressing to look that run down!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Wythenshawe

      No, the residents had a tidy-up before it was shot

    2. Jusme
      FAIL

      Re: Wythenshawe

      Bollx. That was West Gorton. The original Chatsworth estate was right opposite the old ICL factory (IT angle to this comment!) before they moved into studios because filming was too dangerous...

      1. Chewy

        Re: Wythenshawe

        Actually it is nearer Wythenshawe on an industrial estate near the hospital

    3. Alan J. Wylie

      Re: Wythenshawe

      IT angle: Wythenshawe was where the Ferranti Argus computer was developed.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferranti_Argus

      http://www.bcs.org/content/conEvent/6440

  4. David Dawson
    Unhappy

    Plus net phone and broadband down here for us

    In Stalybridge, Tameside.

    They're blaming storm damage.

    :-(

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Plus net phone and broadband down here for us

      How do you damage a storm?

    2. Slacker@work

      Re: Plus net phone and broadband down here for us

      Must be a solar storm given the current blue skies and sun?!

      1. wolfetone Silver badge

        Re: Plus net phone and broadband down here for us

        Someone must have farted against the exchange then.

    3. mark 120

      Re: Plus net phone and broadband down here for us

      It's fine just up the road in Mossley.

    4. MyffyW Silver badge

      Re: Plus net phone and broadband down here for us

      PlusNet are hopeless when there is scarcely a zephyr in the air, so no surprise that a few gusts causes them problems.

      And they offer good-honest-Yorkshire-broadband, so from their point of view you (@David_Dawson) are the wrong side of the Pennines.

      [I speak as someone with Lancashire and Yorkshire blood, so if you fancy flaming this particular Tudor Rose it wouldn't be the first time]

  5. TheBishop

    Broadband? My 56K modem's working fine, what are you on about?

    1. wolfetone Silver badge

      Mate some of us can only use 14.4k, stop showing off.

  6. hplasm
    Meh

    North?

    Meh- Mostly Cheshire. Southern softies, hardly grim at all.

    1. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Re: North?

      Well, there's also the Bury (Home of the late Robert Peel and origin of the Black Pudding) area to the North of Manchester.

      And Southern Softies indeed, Alderly Edge. So all those footballers and their current wives, and the astronomy types from Jodrell Bank may well be scooped in to that as well.

      Unless it is just Sky. In which case, serves 'em right.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: North?

        " and origin of the Black Pudding"

        Luckily the recipe is now widely known, so if Bury slips back to the stone age we'll still be able to fry it good and crisp. And if feeling charitable to send some back to Bury in Red Cross parcels if we haven't eaten it ourselves.

  7. Old Tom
    Boffin

    Eccles cakes from Eccles?

    The most widely available Eccles Cakes - 'Real Lancashire Eccles Cakes ® - are made in Ardwick, Manchester. Only 6 miles away, but not in Eccles.

    1. Slacker@work

      Re: Eccles cakes from Eccles?

      Are Eccles Cakes subject to the appellation controlée laws?

      Y'know like how "Cornish pasties" are now "Cornish style pasties" unless actually made in Cornwall

      1. Shrimpling

        Re: Are Eccles Cakes subject to the appellation controlée laws?

        Nope, no British cakes are subject to laws restricting where they can be made.

        You can make Chelsea buns, Dundee Cake and Welsh Cake wherever you want to.

        1. hplasm
          Flame

          Re: Are Eccles Cakes subject to the appellation controlée laws?

          "Nope, no British cakes are subject to laws restricting where they can be made."

          It's an outrage, I tell you! What good is the EU then?

          /rant

          1. theblackhand
            Coat

            Re: Are Eccles Cakes subject to the appellation controlée laws?

            Exactly - what is the point in having a petty, bureaucratic organisation if they aren't going to be petty or bureaucratic?

            If something isn't done to stop this, foreign cakes, with their fancy icing, will flood UK cake shelves and cause good, honest British cakes to be left on the shelf.

            Vote some random organisation to stop or start this outrage!

            Mines the coat with Labour/Conservative/Lib Dem/UKIP crossed out and replaced with "what is the point?"....

          2. Terry 6 Silver badge
            Facepalm

            Re: Are Eccles Cakes subject to the appellation controlée laws?

            So Eccles cakes aren't from Eccles. Then I guess Bakewell Tarts aren't from Bakewell and Banofee Pie isn't even from Banoffee.

            1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
              Holmes

              Re: Are Eccles Cakes subject to the appellation controlée laws?

              You may be surprised to learn that the Eccles Building is the Nazi Romanic-style building of the Federal Reserve located in modern babylonWashington D.C., which, contrary to its name, does not house a reserve, just a computerized print shop. Set up by Monsieur FDR who thought it might be useful to control economic busts.

        2. Ben Bonsall

          Re: Are Eccles Cakes subject to the appellation controlée laws?

          Don't forget that most English of products, the Belgian bun. Which no one in Belgium has ever heard of. And generally react with surprise and alarm when shown something named after them.

  8. Chemist

    Well..

    I live in the a very nice part of 'the north' surrounded by many of the areas you attempt to mention although I'm in Saas-Fee, Switzerland at the moment. Certainly my broadband connection is working at home as I've just looked at a directory on my server using fish://

    1. Truffle

      Re: Well..

      Saas Fee. Dullest ski holiday i've ever been on. (FYI)

      1. Chemist

        Re: Well..

        "Saas Fee. Dullest ski holiday i've ever been on. (FYI)"

        Well I don't ski but I do walk/climb. If I did ski I could do it at the moment - many of the main ski teams are here including Japanese. The Swiss team has >18 minibuses.

        I can't see the runs at the moment as there is some cloud ( it snowed last night down to ~3000m )

        http://www.saas-fee.ch/en/aktuell/Webcam_Mittelallalin

  9. james 68

    Manchester and Liverpool?

    Well I guess it makes a nice change for the engineers in the area, normally they would be dealing with having all their copper cabling nicked.

  10. Sebastian Brosig

    shut up ye smug London wankers

    and Ramsbottom is named after neither ovine males nor buttocks: it's the valley of the ramson, or wild garlic.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Article crap. Try this instead.

    Here's a suitable replacement article, with accompanying video.

    Bolton,

    Barnsley,

    Nelson,

    Colne,

    Burnley

    Bradford,

    Buxton,

    Crewe,

    Warrington,

    Widnes,

    Wigan,

    Leeds,

    Northwich,

    Nantwich,

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    Hull,

    Sale,

    Salford,

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    Leigh,

    Derby,

    Kearsley

    Keighley

    Maghull,

    Harrogate,

    Huddersfield,

    Oldham, Lancs,

    Grimsby,

    Glossop,

    Hebden Bridge,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North.

    Brighouse,

    Bootle,

    Featherstone,

    Speke,

    Runcorn,

    Rotherham,

    Rochdale,

    Barrow,

    Morecambe,

    Macclesfield,

    Lytham St. Annes

    Clitheroe,

    Cleethorpes,

    The M62,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North.

    Pendlebury,

    Prestwich,

    Preston,

    York,

    Skipton,

    Scunthorpe,

    Scarborough-on-Sea,

    Chester,

    Chorley,

    Cheedle Hulme,

    Ormskirk,

    Accrington Stanley,

    And Leigh,

    Ossett,

    Otley,

    Ikley Moor,

    Sheffield,

    Manchester,

    Castleford,

    Skem,

    Doncaster,

    Dewsbury,

    Hali-fax,

    Bingley,

    Bramall,

    Are all in the North.

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North.

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North,

    It's Grim Up North.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ftw7Qb8mYU

    Play loud.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Article crap. Try this instead.

      Ah Bootle. The only place where they can nick your car wheels while it's moving, muggers walk in twos and when they want to appear posh say they're from Liverpool.

    2. Old Tom

      Cheedle Hulme

      You mean 'Cheadle Hulme' - or is it 'Cheadle, Hulme' ?

      I always loved that double meaning that was probably lost on folk unfamiliar with the 3[i] places involved.

      [i] 4 if you include Cheadle, Staffs

      1. Lord Egerton
        FAIL

        Re: Cheedle Hulme

        Yup it's Cheadle Hulme - although lazy journos just call it Cheadle, which is a separate village 3 miles down the road and doesn't even have a Waitrose!

    3. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Article crap. Try this instead.

        Skipton, best place to live?

        I can remember childhoods in Yorkshire not many miles away, playing on ten foot snowdrifts in winter, wallowing in the miserable isolation and backwardness. So apart from the weather, the locals, and the fact that it's the official Middle Of *ucking Nowhere (MOFN) perhaps it is a good place to live if you're a bored London journo scraping up some contracted copy for the Huff post.

  12. TechnoTechno
    Mushroom

    North??

    More like the Midlands

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: North??

      "North??

      More like the Midlands"

      Is that the same thing as people in Outer London trying to get 0207 numbers when the codes changed?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: North??

      "North?? More like the Midlands"

      Speaking on behalf of Worcestershire, I'd like to say that we don't want any association with them Scouse and Manc criminals.

      Obviously we need a new name to encompass this region, but as Manchester Liverpool and Sheffield are growing into each other a single town name will do. Sh1tchester, anyone?

    3. MyffyW Silver badge

      Re: North??

      "I'm from further North than you." - Wedding Present - 2005

      Not their best work, but worth a listen.

  13. bpfh
    Joke

    It's Grim Up North

    Rumour has it that the person who put the Grim in Grimsby also put somthing in Scunthorpe...

    1. Ben Bonsall

      Re: It's Grim Up North

      Not to mention Peniston

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Manchester is not northen

    Hate to tell everyone in the UK but Manchester is not in the north, its only just midlands.if you remember there was this great big thing about Scotland staying as part of the UK, which it did. looking at the UK that puts Manchester in the middle of the country ie. midlands. As we in Edinburgh say Manchester just a bunch of soft southerns.

    If you are outside the UK, you can be forgiven for thinking Manchester is in the north due to their propaganda about it. To find where Manchester is take a map of the UK, one with out all the outlying islands is easiest, and fold it in half, south coast to north coast, and Manchester is roughly on that fold

    1. hplasm
      Happy

      Re: Manchester is not northen

      You do know what they say about Edinburghers in Aberdeen, don't you?

      1. speedbird007

        Re: Manchester is not northen

        Or even, in Glasgow...

        However down here in the deep south (IOW next stop) anything above Southampton is THE NORTH.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Manchester is not northen

          Far be it for me to defend Manchester but when we talk about the various regions we are talking about England. Scotland, as usual, counts for sod all.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Manchester is not northen

      It's about as far north as anyone from darn sarf would want to go. And I say that as a poncey southerner who braved life on the windswept peaks of Carrbrook for many years.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Manchester is not northen

        "And I say that as a poncey southerner who braved life on the windswept peaks of Carrbrook for many years."

        I'll back that, having moved from the pleasant and civilised south to the uncouth north for my growing up years. By God! It was like being a missionary amongst savages! Or a legionary atop Hadrian's wall. There was I sole speaker of the Queen's English for a hundred miles, and all around the Yorkshire vermin were spitting in the gutter and bah't tatting before setting off to Ilkley Moor with whippets in tow and cloth cap upon head. It was only as we passed Watford Gap on the way south that mum would let me turn the Brownings to safety and come out of the Cortina's rear turret.

        Looking on the bright side, thanks to Blair, most of the BBC and their middle class Guardian reading liberals have been exiled to the Manchester Gulag. Before the native Mancs know it they'll have been gentrified and become the people they currently loathe in the less grim suburbs. And then the Glaswegians will have undisputed title of the expression "northerners".

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Manchester is not northen

          @Ledswinger

          "for my growing up years"

          And did you eventually grow up ?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Manchester is not northen

            "And did you eventually grow up ?"

            We both know the answer to that!

  15. Kydoimos

    That's not the north!

    It's positively middle of the road.

    I can confirm that up here in the wilds of Northumberland (so far north we used to be Scotland), my sky broadband is working perfectly.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: That's not the north!

      Northumbria used to stretch from Edinburgh down to Sheffield. I'd think anyone in that vicinity could be forgiven for calling themselves Northern!

      Ned Stark hails from Sheffield, and you don't get much more northern than Lord Paramount of the North.

      1. Tom Cooke

        Re: That's not the north!

        >Northumbria used to stretch from Edinburgh down to Sheffield. I'd think anyone in that vicinity could be forgiven for calling themselves Northern!

        Upvote for reminding of a piece of history that gets far too little coverage these days IMO.

        Edit: There's a place very near my old home in Sheffield, called "Dore", which I understand really was the *door* to Northumbria from whichever other Anglo-Saxon kingdom was adjacent.

  16. rpb

    Glad to hear that no Eccles cakes were harmed during this outage, more for me !

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @rpb

      >more for me

      And you're welcome to them, disgusting things. In Yorkshire we feed eccles cakes to pigs although we have to blend them in with other things otheriwse they wouldn't touch them.

      1. John G Imrie

        Re: @rpb

        Just as long as you don't blend them with Pontefract cakes they are horrible, and I like liquorice.

        I'm sure that they are just some joke on the Southerners.

      2. Spoobistle
        Mushroom

        Re: @rpb - Currant in Yorkshire

        > In Yorkshire we feed Eccles cakes to pigs although we have to blend them in with other things

        As a child in Manchester it was a tricky choice between the Egg Custard and the Eccles Cake; not till I came to Yorkshire did I discover that some local genius had combined the two in the Curd Tart. Its only disadvantage is having to avoid the Hulture Secretary temptation in the bakery.

        1. Thecowking

          Re: @rpb - Currant in Yorkshire

          Oooh, egg tart.

          I've not had one of those in years. Of course, I live in the desolate wastes of the South now (Cambridge has only one Greggs and that's a Greggs café, bloody barbaric I tell you), so such pleasures are lost to me.

          Ask for a bacon barm round here and they look at you funny. Ask for a donner kebab and they serve you some anemic little thing in a sodding pitta rather than a proper portion in a naan like you get back in Manchester.

          I do miss it there. One day I shall move back and revel in proper food and being near hills again.

  17. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

    translation

    "caused by complications with planned network maintenance"

    Watch out for my coffee cup.

    Oops

    What the fsck did you put it there for in the first place?

  18. Graham 22

    My service dropped at 00:05 last night, went and did a router reboot and then tried my landline for good measure. Now I just get the ominous message "Your number is out of service". Delightful, I only went live on fibre last week and now its stolen from my grasp. DAMN YOU SKY !!!

  19. pisquee

    North?

    Up in Durham, Manchester is definitely down south!

    Broadband working fine up here in the real north of England! (and way quicker than when I lived in London.)

  20. MagicBoy

    It's spelt Stockport you cretins!

    It might be grim up North, but at least we can spell. :p

  21. Obitim
    Pint

    Frodsham

    Is cracking for a pub crawl!

    Think that the locals will be making the most of that whilst T'internet is down!

  22. PhilBuk

    Caldy - Affluent?

    Describing Caldy as affluent is like saying the Pope is interested in religon. Seriously rich would be more accurate.

    Phil.

  23. MagicBoy

    Just came back on about 5 minutes ago...

    Stockpoort for the Reg Hacks, Stockport for everyone else. ;)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yep, back on in Warrington about the same time.

  24. toffer99

    Sky is down? I expect the IQ of local people to soar if the outage lasts.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Goodness me Jasper, we do have it in for the North.

    How can anyone hailing from Essex, refer to areas of south Manchester and Cheshire as the 'Badlands'?

    I suspect quite a small percentage of people living in the 'Badlands' have sky broadband given the numerous other unaffected providers out there.

    One benefit of living in the North is we have something called mobile internet which is quite fabulous, this is especially good when land based internet goes down it means people in the 'grim north' just 'carry on regardless'.

    When I stumbled across your piece my first thought was, which pompous southern cretin has written this? Someone that has clearly never been north of Milton Keynes.

    I leave you to pen more drivel.........

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Northern my arse. What about Cumbria, pretty much everyone is a Southerner to us. (apart from the savages over the wall). There are some spectacularly crap places up here though.

  27. cllr.

    Broadband down in Halewood nr Liverpool

    EE say its expected to be back up by midnight

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