Digital Region Community Support Forum - Ask4

ASK4 Statement for Residential DRL Customers

Thu, 13 Mar 2014 16:48:58 +0000

As emailed to all our residential DRL customers today

Good Morning,

You may have heard that the Digital Region Network, operated by Thales, is set to close due to the network owner, Digital Region Limited (DRL), going out of business. The date for the closure of the network is set at 14th August 2014. After that date your Digital Region service will cease to work and ASK4 will be unable to provide you with a similar service.

As your Internet Service Provider, we are working hard with Thales and DRL to clarify the ways in which you can migrate your service to a new provider with the least interruption to service as possible. At this time there is still a lack of clarity about some of the methods that it might be possible to use that allow for a seamless migration. We are working hard to clarify the situation with DRL and Thales, but for the moment the only certain facts about migration options are as follows:

You can cease your service with ASK4 with no financial penalty for leaving your contract early. Please be aware that once you ask us to cease your connection, we will co-ordinate the date of your cease to be the same as the date that your next bill is due.
Once you have received confirmation that the cease process is completed, you can request a new service from a new provider.
Please note that this is not a migration as such, it is what is referred to as a "cease and re-provide”. This means you will be without an internet connection for as long as it takes your new provider to activate their service on your line.
It is not possible to migrate your service to another Digital Region service provider at this time.
I understand that you will want more information about your options as soon as possible to allow you the most time to make an informed decision about where to move your service to. This statement is simply to let you know the current state of the service closure plans and give you some indication that we are working hard to try and provide clarity for you as soon as possible.

Best regards,
Simon Day

Head of Support Services, ASK4

If you have any further queries please direct them to our support team on 0114 303 3232 or via support@ask4.com.

Leaving DRL - ASK4

Thu, 13 Mar 2014 12:13:23 +0000

I am hoping someone can guide me on the process please.

I have been on DRL from the beginning with ASK4 and I am not in any contract.

I had problems originally as I informed +net I was leaving but as DRL don't use MAC keys even through I was asked for one my +net account continued and even had to get them out (BT) to prove I had no =net connection.

I am fortunate that I can now get FTTC in my local area so I thought I should get on with it as ASK4 in the T&C's say they only give me 7 days notice to terminate and I have a feeling that they will just drop the half dozen DRL customers they have like a stone.

I have been asking ASK4 for some time about transferring across and there is no information from them about DRL at all and just get fobbed off with a typical "we don't know either"

So any ideas how I migrate out ?? I assume it is not the same as before DRL as when I call +net I am sure it will be DRL ??? just like before.

Do you think I will have to cease ask4 internet and then reapply again for BB from the beginning and wait several weeks without any service ??

Or should I wait and see if ASK4 will carry out a seamless transfer to an ISP of my choice ??

Any advice would be great

David - Sheffield

Ask4 Silence - Any News??

Fri, 07 Feb 2014 20:03:54 +0000

Apart from network maintenance emails, I've not heard a dicky bird from Ask4 since being moved to them many months ago. They've certainly kept away from this forum for a long while.

Does anybody else still have a DR service with Ask4?

I managed to find the following statement from the website http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/201...close.html but not had anything sent to me personally: -

Quote:UPDATE 16th August – 11:48am

The Chief Operating Officer of Sheffield-based UK ISP ASK4, Ross Bray, has sent us the following statement.

Ask4 Statement on DRL Closure:

“Yesterday Ask4 were informed that the shareholders of Digital Region Limited had taken the decision to close the network via a managed closure approach.

At present there has been no more information provided to ISPs connected to DRL about how this closure will be conducted. All ISPs have been invited to meet with DRL personnel later in the month in order to discuss concerns about the closure.

For the foreseeable future the network will continue to operate as normal and there will be no disruption to service.

ASK4 is investigating all options to continue to provide service to its Digital Region customers, or to assist those customers in finding an alternative supply. ASK4 will be in touch with all customers over the coming weeks as more information is made available to help explain all options that are available to them.”

Ask4 Interview On Digital Region

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 19:45:04 +0000

I saw this a couple of weeks ago and thought it wasn't bad. Has anyone else seen it yet?

Link here if your interested.

network problems ? :S

Sun, 24 Jun 2012 18:26:10 +0100

it seems there is some very wrong going on with my internet connection am not sure if its just me or not but here's abit more info

and take a look at

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share...d0500.html

any ideas @jody-ASK4 ?

20 mins later internet seem to act dead so i turned both the router and cellpipe off and back on. now it seems to ok but i gonna look into this

just been on the phone to ask4 to get tales to look into what happen as this isn't right

interleaving

Wed, 30 May 2012 16:52:20 +0100

so... ask4 and interleaving they seem to be unsure what it was untill i said its to reduce the ping for me atm i get 11ms to think broadband (before i was getting 32ms) and 16 ms to bbc.co.uk (about 36 ms before)also check out the graph lol

Code:

Pinging thinkbroadband.com [80.249.99.130] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 80.249.99.130: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=56

Reply from 80.249.99.130: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=56

Reply from 80.249.99.130: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=56

Reply from 80.249.99.130: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=56

Ping statistics for 80.249.99.130:

    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

    Minimum = 11ms, Maximum = 11ms, Average = 11ms

and

Code:

Pinging bbc.co.uk [212.58.241.131] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=243

Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=243

Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=243

Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=243

Ping statistics for 212.58.241.131:

    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

    Minimum = 15ms, Maximum = 16ms, Average = 15ms

before:

after:

possible problem with speed?

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 20:05:23 +0100

not sure if this is just me or not but my speed as dropped at about 1:30 pm today, the connection hasn't disconnected at all. any ideas ? @ASK4, @jody-ASK4

Leaving Ask4 as former ripwire customer

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 12:44:33 +0100

I was a ripwire customer and joined december 2010 on a 12 month contract and since the migration to ask4 I have had slow/iratic speeds high pings etc so decided it was time to change.

but when I rang up to get my mac code they said i was on a 18 month contract and cannot give me my mac code until 6th june.

as i dont have any paperwork to verify this is there any other way I can prove my contract was for 12 months a few months after I joined then contracts went up to 18 months but that still does not change the fact i joined on a 12 month.

Where is ASK4 max/ultra?

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 23:06:35 +0100

ASK4,

Origin have Max
LBO have Ultra
ASK4 have ???

Anyone hear about ASK4 doing anything in the max/ultra/supreme/extreme area? I'm loathed to spend money migrating for nothing, but i don't want to be left behind on a slow* BB provider.

I do wonder, given the lack of DR info on their site, whether ASK4 are concentrating more on their direct ethernet network than on the DR network customers?

* relatively speaking of course

Why Doesn't ASK4 Advertise Digital Region?

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 16:58:41 +0100

I know back on the old forum, Jon himself said they would rather keep quiet, but with LittleBigOne and Origin advertising, it doesn't make much sense that they don't do it themselves.

Are they embarrassed being on the Digital Region network or something? Don't want customers?

Can anyone here think of any reasons why they won't advertise?

Higher pings?

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 21:28:15 +0100

Since yesterday my Pings have doubled from ~30 to over 60... Maybe the bad weather? Can someone else please check their pings?

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms my.router [192.168.1.1]
2 57 ms 56 ms 57 ms ac1-ppp.dr.ask4.net [81.23.59.241]
3 57 ms 57 ms 57 ms br1-ac.dr.ask4.net [81.23.57.1]
4 57 ms 57 ms 57 ms dc1-xmr.dr.ask4.net [81.23.57.17]

Ask4 Portal or Member Centre?

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:42:52 +0100

One thing I've missed since being with Digital Region is the facility to view my account details on-line. This includes basic things like recent bills and download usage. All my previous ISPs had an adequate 'Member Centre' or control panel.

Have Ask4 got this feature? I notice that they have some kind of portal at https://portal.ask4.com/account/ but my login details weren't accepted.

Apart from receiving a 'blank' Direct Debit letter that looked like something from my local church, I've still not had a proper introduction to Ask4 or any information about their broadband service. They obviously changed something that made my connection go faster than Ripwire's but I've no idea what

no internet for 2-3 hours

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:32:37 +0100

so.. about 12am i have not internet for just over 2 hours yet this morning i've haven't seen anyone said anything about nor do i have clue what happen as this sure is 1 thing i REALLY hate about digital region

any ideas why i had no internet for ~2 hours? @ASK4 @jody-ASK4

here's some logs from what was going on

Code:

index     Time          Type     Level     Log Content

1    Mar 29 00:24:45    PPP     INFO     sent [PADI Host-Uniq(0x000002df)]

2    Mar 29 00:24:50    PPP     INFO     sent [PADI Host-Uniq(0x000002df)]

3    Mar 29 00:25:00    PPP     INFO     sent [PADI Host-Uniq(0x000002df)]

4    Mar 29 00:25:20    PPP     ERROR     Timeout waiting for PADO packets

5    Mar 29 00:25:29    PPP     INFO     sent [PADI Host-Uniq(0x000002e2)]

6    Mar 29 00:25:34    PPP     INFO     sent [PADI Host-Uniq(0x000002e2)]

7    Mar 29 00:25:44    PPP     INFO     sent [PADI Host-Uniq(0x000002e2)]

8    Mar 29 00:26:04    PPP     ERROR     Timeout waiting for PADO packets

Direct Debits

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 10:35:42 +0000

As I'm not currently in the country I can't say whether I have been contacted by telephone, but has anyone had any contact from @ASK4Support in relation to payments and Direct Debits?

Just curious...

a few questions for ASK4

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 20:13:01 +0000

Hi i have few questions for @ASK4 @Jody-ASK4,

I've found out my connection can handle a much faster connection at the moment am averaging about 30mb/s up and before it was around 16-18mb/s I've been on the phone with ask4 to tweak the profile abit more to my liking which is great. whiles i was on the phone i was told noise cancelling has been turned off and i would like to know abit more info about this. also any news on the 17a profile (80/20) which "should" be using noise cancelling and wondering if this would still help to get a greater speed then what am getting at the moment but at a later date once this profile is available ?

a very interesting read http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/vdsl2-vectoring/

many thanks

wake up no internet BUT read for more info

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 09:31:56 +0000

Hi, i just woke up about 30 mins ago to find i had no internet i think it when down between 7-8 i think... anyway i phoned up i was told to unplug the cables and reconnect. and by god i was shocked with what i seen

in short.. nothing has changed at my end, still on the same network etc.. BUT yet my speed can raised and this wasn't possible before with ripwire WTF? lol

[RESOLVED] Unable to log in to Ask4

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 08:59:13 +0000

Has anyone else had problems with logging in with Ask4 this morning? I'm a Ripwire refugee and I've tried via my router and with a direct connection to my PC without joy (error 691).

I called tech support earlier and when the 2nd line guys get in they are going to reset my password. Just waiting on the email now.

Any Outstanding Issues?

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 21:14:37 +0000

Hi Folks,

So now that we've got most of you on the new platform we're keen to get our support team ironing out the issues you had before migration and those which some of you have seen develop afterwards.

It's good to see the discussions on here but if you're having real support issues we need to you to contact our support team on 0114 303 3232 or at support@ask4.com. Jody and I are trying to stay on top of this in our own time but we cannot resolve your issues quickly and efficiently like the guys on the phones can.

The 3rd party did make some profile tweaks during migrations designed to improve stability and performance across the network. In most cases things should have improved or stayed the same but it looks like a few of you have seen some issues with upload performance in particular.

If you call into support with these symptoms our guys will raise a ticket with the 3rd party and get it looked at as soon as possible.

Alfie.

Ask4 Routing

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:14:53 +0000

I've been looking at some of the speedtest's that members have been submitting and wondered which way Ask4 are routing.

As it reports that members are approximately 150 miles from Leeds & Manchester

When I do the tests from my BT Infinity Connection I always within the 50 mile radius

Your Throughput Speeds Since Migration

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 20:18:40 +0000

Since migration over to Ask4 I'm happy to say speeds have been very consistent around the 30mb mark. Usually I would get about 32/33mb on RiPWiRE. No major issues though. Take the stability any day of the week. Still have the issue with the ping though.

Only blip was today and yesterday where speeds were lower.