Home »

UK ISP News Archives

⇆ Speedtest

✎ Review ISP

✔ Compare ISP

★ Top 10 ISPs

Bulldog Saves The Day - Manchester

Posted: 07th Apr, 2004 By: MarkJ

UK ISP Bulldog Communications has highlighted the supportive role it played following the Manchester BT tunnel fire. The news is aimed at showcasing the importance of an effective disaster recovery program:

Bulldog Averts Total Communications Meltdown in Manchester!

Bulldog Communications, the UKs high-speed broadband specialist, saved Manchester businesses thousands of pounds last week when it was able to avert a total data blackout in the city.

Within hours of the start of the fire that wiped out voice and data services for nearly 17,000 businesses, Bulldog, C2 Internet and BT engineers implemented a full disaster recovery programme. By 8.30pm that evening all of C2 Internets customers had been routed via Bulldogs network interconnect in London avoiding any further downtime.

A spokesperson from Manchester Chamber of Commerce commented, Unlike C2 Internet and Bulldog, other service providers in the region were unable to draw upon a predisposed contingency plan. Today, a week later, the disaster has cost nearly £10 million pounds in operational downtime to businesses. The other service providers are still scrambling to guarantee their customers a return to full service.

Richard Greco, CEO of Bulldog Communications said, Last weeks unprecedented fire in Manchesters tunnels had the potential to cause days, if not weeks of chaos for the citys residents and businesses. Thanks to emergency procedures that were in place, and swiftly mobilised, Bulldog was able to reinstate a service to C2s customers with absolute minimum disruption. I think this fire and the effect it has had on businesses and residents in Manchester has brought home just how real the threat of accidental or intentional damage could be on the infrastructure of a major city. Therefore there are definitely some lessons that can be learned from last weeks events in Manchester and the speed at which Bulldog was able to get C2 Internets services up and running again.

Ben Butler, Technical Director of C2 Internet said, "C2 have built a resilient diverse core network to protect against exactly these sorts of events. Its not a question of having infrastructure in just Manchester or London, the two main Internet hub locations in the UK, as a provider of services to businesses you need it in both locations.

"C2 recognise that many of our business clients take their own businesses seriously, and can see the value of continued service versus the cost and risk of downtime, and consider this when weighing the cost of supply. If your ISPs does not have real, diverse and resilient infrastructure in place, it is too late once a critical event like the fire in Manchester has occurred. In combination with our core network and interconnection with wholesale DSL providers, BT and Bulldog, in different metropolitan centres we are able to deliver more resilient networking solutions to our customers.