IBIS / Internet Systems Status

IBIS Internet Systems Status

This page displays the current status of IBIS internet systems, dial up lines and data links, with summary information on current faults and warnings of possible disruptions.

Abbreviations:
WACS - West African Cable System
EASSY - East African Submarine System
RSA - Republic of South Africa
DNS - Domain Name System

See Notices - below - for status messages

Status Indicators:

fully operational

minor problems / warnings

major problems

Current Status - Wednesday 16 October 2019

IBIS Internet Systems	fully operational

Incoming DialUp Lines	fully operational

Telecoms ADSL system	fully operational

Data Link: WACS	fully operational

Data Link: EASSY	fully operational

Data Link: RSA	fully operational

Data Link: Francistown	fully operational

Data Link: Maun	fully operational

Botswana DNS	fully operational

Notices

Th 26th Sep 2019 There is a power outage in G'West which means that we are running on backup power. We are secure in our emergency power provision but we cannot answer for third party providers.

Sun 22nd Sep 2019 22:45 We note for the record that Bofinet reports that services were only fully restored at 15:39.

Sun 22nd Sep 2019 14:10 Bofinet report that all links appear to have been restored but they are still waiting on their RSA partner to confirm that the works have been completed.

Sun 22nd Sep 2019 12:00 Access to most international destinations appears to have been restored by 11:50.

Sun 22nd Sep 2019 10:47 We finally managed to get some information from Bofinet (BTC is still unreachable). It appears that both the WACS link and the EASSY link are down due to "planned" maintenance. All Bofinet and, presumably, BTC traffic is being routed via RSA.
There is a proposed restore time for one of the international links of 14:00 today.

< Sun 22nd Sep 2019 10:25 Internet access has been unstable since 10:08. We are trying to contact our service providers. Access to local sites and some international sites appears to be working.

Tue 17th Sep 2019 16:35 BBI fixed their routing a short while ago and customers can now reach our mail and other servers from BBI's network. In the off-chance that there is a group of BBI users who still cannot reach our services please let us knopw and we will escalate with BBI on your behalf.

Tue 17th Sep 2019 14:45 BBI acknowledge their routing issue and are working to resolve it.

Tue 17th Sep 2019 11:39 We note that at 00:39 BBI became unable to route traffic back to us via the Botswana Internet Exchange. Customers using BBI for internet access are unable to access our mail servers of WebMail interface. We are notifying BBI.

Mon 16th Sep 2019 20:58 A problem that was preventing users on our Global.bw domain from receiving their mail has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thu 8th Aug 2019 11:25 Botswana Registry, WHOIS service and DNS servers came back up at 09:03

Thu 8th Aug 2019 07:20 The Botswana Registry, WHOIS service and DNS servers went down again at 06:40.

Mon 5th Aug 2019 07:50 Botswana Registry and associated services were restored at 22:38 last night.

Sun 4th Aug 2019 18:29 We note that the BW registry and its associated services - WHOIS, DNS servers dns1.nic.net.bw and dns3.nic.net.bw have been down since 13:17 today. Please refer to the posts below for the impact of these outages.

Fri 2nd Aug 2019 07:35 A problem preventing some users from accessing non-local sites since 05:45 has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Tue 30th Jul 2019 19:00 Most of BOCRA's Registry services were restored today. The Registry and WHOIS servers came up at 14:38. dns1.nic.net.bw came back up at 12:07 while dns3 was restored at 12:39. The normal registry services listed in the message below have all been restored. dns2.nic.net.bw remains down for over 25 days.

Sat 27th Jul 2019 22:05 The three Botswana nameservers hosted by BOCRA, dns1.nic.net.bw, dns2.nic.net.bw and dns3.nic.net.bw are currently off-line. dns2.nic.net.bw, which is hosted in Francistown, has been down since Jul 5th while dns1.nic.net.bw, dns3.nic.net.bw, the BW Registry and the BW WHOIS services all went down at 13:54 on Sat 27th Jul. There are other DNS servers available which can provide the records hosted by the off-line DNS servers, however new Domain registrations, renewals, transfers and domain ownership changes will be unavailable until the Registry servers are brought back on-line.

Fri 5th Jul 2019 10:39 Mail services have been full restored. Once again we apologize for the inconvenience caused.

Fri 5th Jul 2019 09:39 We have more problems with mail to the info.bw domain. We are working to restore services. Affected customers are welcome to contact our service desk if they would like to be notified when services are restored.

Thu 4th Jul 2019 17:59 POP mail services have been restored. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thu 4th Jul 2019 15:50 POP mail services to info.bw customers are down. We are attempting to restore service.

Mon 17th Jun 2019 BTC have some problems with phone services in Gaborone West. In common with our neighbours we have no phone of fax lines working. BTC is attending to the problem. Customers needing assistance are requested, if possible, to contact us via email at support@info·bw

Tue 23rd Apr 2019 20:32 Full service has now been restored to all customers.

Tue 23rd Apr 2019 20:19 Some customers have no internet access although local sites are opening. We are addressing the problem.

Tue 23rd Apr 2019 09:29 The problem affecting mail for some users has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Tue 23rd Apr 2019 09:20 There is a problem affecting mail for some of our customers. We are working to restore services.

Thu 11th Apr 2019 07:50 BTC has advised us of planned works on tehir MSU2 Exchange in G'West that may interfere with internet access. The works are scheduled to last for 20 minutes from 0h00 on Tues 16th April 2019.

Thu 14th Mar 2019 16:00 Bofinet reports problems with a link to Teraco in RSA. It is possible that traffic to South African destinations will be slow.

Mon 11th Mar 2019 13:32 BW-Registry services were restored at 11:52.

Mon 11th Mar 2019 09:06 We have observed problems reaching some MTN-hosted IP ranges since 02:42 this morning. These IPs are not routed through the Botswana Internet Exchange (BINX); rather they are routed out to the internet and through South Africa. The cause of the problem appears to be route-flapping at Liquid Telecom in RSA.

Mon 11th Mar 2019 08:05 Once again the BW-Registry responsible for the dot-BW domain namespace is experiencing problems. On Thur Mar 7th at 09:31 the dns1.nic.net.bw name server went down. It appears that the online registry portal registry.nic.net.bw as well as the whois server whois.nic.net.bw (which accepts queries on port 43) share the same fate (or at least the same connectivity) as dns1.nic.net.bw. Both are currently down. DNS operations will not be affected but new domain registrations as well as renewals and changes will be impossible until the services are restored.

Sat 9th Mar 2019 11:34 Our Bofinet came back to normal at 10:43 and has been stable since then.

Sat 9th Mar 2019 07:40 We are again experiencing problems with our bofinet link. Affected customers are encouraged to use our proxy server proxy.info.bw port 8080. This will enable web browsing. We have placed brief instructions here as to how to make the change.
Fri 8th Mar 2019 10:50 Our Bofinet link came back at 10:22. The apparent cause was a routing problem between Bofinet and BTG.

Fri 8th Mar 2019 08:30 Our Bofinet link has been down since midnight. We suspect engineering works at Bofinet. Some customers will have no internet access. We have reported the link to Bofinet.

Wed 6th Mar 2019 14:35 BTC's RLU 8 exchange came back up at 14:19. Any customers still suffering connection problems should please call our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Wed 6th Mar 2019 13:50 A number of customers are without leased line or other data access due to the failure of BTC's RLU 8 exchange which went down at 12:37. We understand that it suffered a power failure and the backup power supply has also failed.
Affected customers are encouraged to call our Service Desk on 365-6400 so that we can notify them once BTC restores services.

Wed 6th Mar 2019 09:20 The ns1.nic.net.bw server came back online at 08:25. We note that the other BW registry services have also been restored.

Wed 6th Mar 2019 08:18 One of the BW nameservers dns1.nic.net.bw, has been down since 22:11 yesterday. Registry services for the BW domain are also offline as is the WHOIS service on whois service on nic.net.bw. Normal DNS operations will not be affected but domain registrations and renewals will be impossible until the services are restored.

Thu 28th Feb 2019 08:30 The problem preventing access to some mail services has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thu 28th Feb 2019 07:55 There is a problem preventing some users from accessing their mail. We are working to resolve it.

Fri 15th Feb 2019 13:40 BTC's phone system seemed to have started to return to normal at about 12:36. BTC report that a router in their G'West exchange had failed. Our switchboard is now operating normally and a number of users who had been disconnected from ADSL have had their access restored. BTC say they are working to fully restore services. Any customers without ADSL access are encouraged to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Fri 15th Feb 2019 11:15 It appears that the phone outage is widespread and affecting BTC's own services including their offices and their management systems.

Fri 15th Feb 2019 09:50 We are struggling to contact anyone at BTC

Fri 15th Feb 2019 08:30 There is a major problem with the BTC phone network affecting numerous customers. We are trying to get information from BTC.

Wed 13th Feb 2019 10:10 A problem that was delaying incoming mail for some users has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Wed 12th Dec 2018 09:40 We have been observing intermittent outages on some BTC-provided lines this morning. At 09:28 we lost access to some leased-line customers and we are seeing packet loss on BTC internet bandwidth. We are unable to contact BTC at their Network Operations Centre.

Wed 28th Nov 2018 18:00 BTC's ADSL service to our Northern customers was restored at 18:00. Any customers without ADSL service are requested to notify our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Wed 28th Nov 2018 15:56 Some of our servers were unreachable from 15:23. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Wed 28th Nov 2018 13:58 A number of our customers served by BTC's BRAS in the North of Botswana have been without ADSL services since yesterday evening. BTC are aware of the issue.

Mon 19th Nov 2018 22:48 At 22:18 we lost touch touch with a number of local links. BTC has confirmed that they are experiencing an unspecified failure. Internet access is so far unaffected.

Mon 19th Nov 2018 10:38 Our Bofinet link going down appeared to coincide with Bofinet planned work that should not have affected our link. The link was restored at 10:12 following equipment resets by both BTG & Bofinet.

Mon 19th Nov 2018 07:06 Our Bofinet internet link went down at midnight. We have reported it to Bofinet who are investigating.

Sun 18th Nov 2018 14:20 BTC have just finished restoring their link to the BINX and other services which were left down following their UPS testing exercise last night.

Sun 18th Nov 2018 08:22 Last night at 23:30 BTC experienced a network failure that affected our internet services as well as other service links. At 05:16 this morning services started being restored however we note that the BTC link to the BINX is currently down we have notified BTC of this. We additionally observe that two BTC-hosted DNS name Servers dns3.nic.net.bw and master.btc.net.bw remain offline.

Wed 14th Nov 2018 08:30 We have been running on backup power since 06:59 when a major power cut affected Gaborone West. We do not anticipate any interruptions to services but third party providers may experience their own problems.

Fri 9th Nov 2018 07:50 Bofinet overnight reported a cable break in RSA that may result in slowness in internet access.

Wed 31st Oct 2018 11:49 Our services via Bofinet were restored a few minutes ago. We apologize for the inconvenience to our customers.

Wed 31st Oct 2018 11:24 We are still trying to get our Bofinet link back up. Affected customers may use one of our proxy servers proxy.info.bw port 8080. This will enable web browsing. We have placed brief instructions here as to how to make the change.
Wed 31st Oct 2018 09:14 Our internet link to Bofinet went down at 08:54. We have notified Bofinet and they are investigating.

Fri 26th Oct 2018 14:57 Bofinet has advised us of damage to fibre connectivity in RSA that may lead to slowness in Internet access.

Thu 19th Oct 2018 17:05 Since 15:15 some of our customers have been experiencing unreliable internet access. The problem which related to access to one of our bandwidth providers has been resolved and we apologize for the inconvenience.

Sat 29th Sep 2018 10:22 A problem that was preventing soem users sending mail has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Wed 5th Sep 2018 16:30 BTC advised us this afternoon of planned work which may interrupt internet access between 22h00 today and 03h00 tomorrow.

Wed 22nd Aug 2018 22:59 BTC's internet service has been restored. Although there were some planned engineering works by BTC it is unclear if these were the cause of the outage.

Wed 22nd Aug 2018 22:00 Internet access via BTC has been down since 21:30. We do not yet have an explantion from BTC. Affected customers are advised that they may use one of our proxy servers - proxy2.info.bw port 8080. This will provide internet access for browsing web pages or using FTP. There are brief instructions here for making this configuration change.

Tue 21st Aug 2018 15:39 Customers using BBI's bandwidth are unable to access our network. This is not under our control and from our management system we see that they began experiencing problems at 12h41 today.

Fri 17th Aug 2018 00:47 Customers who are having trouble accessing the internet are encouraged to use our proxy server proxy.info.bw port 8080. This will enable access to web browsing using http, https and ftp.
We have placed brief instructions here for those don't know how to make this configuration change.
Mail handling via our mail servers should not be affected

Fri 17th Aug 2018 00:37 Bofinet confirm that they are carrying out planned work at the BTC MSU2 exchange which has brought down our fibre link. We are unaware of any notification from Bofinet warning about this work. They state that services should be restored by 04h00.

Fri 17th Aug 2018 00:20 Our fibre link to Bofinet went down at 23h46 yesterday. We have reported it to Bofinet Fri 10th Aug 2018 07:50 BTC have advised us of planned works to be carried out at their main exchange in Gaborone (MSU1 aka Megaleng). The work is scheduled to last from 23h00 on Sat 11/08/18 until 05h00 on Sun 12/08/18. They advise that "Services will be affected" which, in the context of the advisory, we interpret to mean any data services, including ADSL, leased lines, Metro and internet connectivity, may be affected at various times for various durations.

Thu 9th Aug 2018 16:52 BTC have restored connectivity. We don't yet have an explanation of what went wrong for them or how they fixed it but they told us they made some routing changes in order to bypass a suspect link.

Thu 9th Aug 2018 15:59 Customers who are having trouble accessing the internet are encouraged to use our proxy server proxy2.info.bw port 8080. This will speed up access to web browsing using http, https and ftp.
We have placed brief instructions here for those who don't know how to make this configuration change.

Thu 9th Aug 2018 15:49 We have confirmed that the internet problems currently being experienced are due to BTC. We are trying to engage with them to resolve this.

Thu 9th Aug 2018 14:45 We have noticed intermittent problems accessing numerous sites around the internet since at least 13h30. We have queried both BTC and Bofinet but they both deny any problems. We are continuing to investigate.

Fri 3rd Aug 2018 07:45 BTC have advised of planned works to be carried out overnight from 22h00 on Mon 6/8/18 until 03h00 on 7/8/18. There is a possibility of interruptions to BTC-supplied internet bandwidth during this period.

Thu 12th July 2018 08:16 BTC has notified us of planned maintenance work to be carried out from 22h00 until midight on Fri 13/07/18 that may affect their DNS servers. This will not affect Bytes customers however their may be difficulties accessing services which are hosted by BTC. The Botswana DNS is resilient against failures of BTC's DNS.

Wed 11th July 2018 17:45 While investigating difficulties some users are experiencing retrieving mail while using BTC-supplied internet connections, we have observed that BTC has been allocating the same IP addresses simultaneously to two different users. It seems that the same IP ranges (168.167.79.* and 168.167.80.*) are being allocated to users in F'Town and also in Maun.
This is a BTC configuration problem and users will not be able to access internet services reliably while this condition persists. We have notified BTC.

Sun 8th July 2018 10:59 Bofinet has advised us of a fibre cut South of Gaborone on the Lobatse Rd. It is unclear which services may be affected.

Sat 7th July 2018 15:55 It appears that BTC has fixed the routing of our customers' ADSL traffic from the BTC BRAS in Francistown to their router in Gaborone. We see that our users in the North of Botswana can now access the internet. In the offchance that there are ADSL users who still do not have internet access please turn off your ADSL modem, wait for a minute and then turn it on again. Please do not try to factory-reset your modem.

Sat 7th July 2018 15:04 We are continuing to work with BTC to help them diagnose why they are not routing their ADSL traffic in the North of Botswana to us.

Sat 7th July 2018 12:06 We have been chasing BTC about their inability to restore ADSL services to users in the North of the country but with very little progress.

Fri 6th July 2018 14:59 BTC is still hving trouble restoring ADSL services to customers in F'Town, Maun & Ghanzi.

Fri 6th July 2018 00:19 Our internet connectivity via BTC has been restored and users on BTC's network can now access email and other services on our network. BTC's ADSL services have been restored but we note that a significant number of users have not reconnected. Customers unable to connect are requested to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Thu 5th July 2018 17:18 BTC ADSL is slowly being restored to all ISPs however we have other problems with BTC services. We have no bandwidth on our BTC link and BTC-connected customers cannot reach us. BTC is trying to resolve the problem.

Thu 5th July 2018 14:36 ADSL is still down and we have problems with another BTC-provided network. BTC is working on both issues

Thu 5th July 2018 10:57 Almost all of our ADSL customers have lost connectivity to our network. We have reported this to BTC who are invetigating.

Thu 21st Jun 2018 10:55 The repair of the RSA fibre cut turned out to be a major exercise involving major excavations and the requirement of armed protection for the contractors. The repair has been completed to the extent that connectivity has been restored so internet traffic should be back to normal.

Wed 20th Jun 2018 07:35 There is a possibilty of slow internet access due to congestion caused by a fibre cut in RSA last night.

Fri 15th Jun 2018 14:41 Bofinet have notified us of a fibre cut caused by road construction 7km South of Gaborone. It is unclear which services are affected but we note that our ADSL and leased line links to Southern Botswana appear unaffected.

Thu 14th Jun 2018 15:28 Bofinet inform us that their faulty RSA link is up and stable although they haven't had confirmation from their upstream partner that the link is fully restored. (Actually as the initial problem was a power failure which was resolved by sending a generator which then had to be refuelled it is possible that "the problem" might reoccur.)

Thu 14th Jun 2018 14:00 Bofinet has notified us of possible internet traffic congestion due to the loss of one of their RSA links.

Fri 8th Jun 2018 13:38 Our Bofinet link is back up.

Fri 8th Jun 2018 13:34 While our Bofinet link is down customers can still access the internet using our Proxy Server (proxy.info.bw port 8080). There are some simple instructions on configuring your browser to use our proxy here .

Fri 8th Jun 2018 13:05 Our Internet link via Bofinet is down we are trying to get feedback from Bofinet.

Wed 2nd May 2018 08:15 Microsoft's DNS servers started resolving DNS queries for the urs.microsoft.com domain at 01:58 on Tues 1st May 2018. During our investigation we managed to ascertain that this selective DNS outage affected at least traffic from Bofinet, BTC, Mascom and Orange. We have had no feedback from our upstream providers as to the cause of this strange behaviour.

Fri 27th Apr 2018 18:03 We have observed since yesterday that there are difficulties resolving certain Microsoft domain names from DNS servers in Botswana. The problem began at 20:24 on Wed 25th Apr. Those who are technically-minded and enjoy being frustrated may wish to try to resolve urs.microsoft.com from local servers (that do their own resolving) and public DNS servers such as 8.8.8.8. The results, even with Google's servers, may vary over time.
The impact of these problems will vary according to your infrastructure but MicroSoft's SmartScreen Filter service might become unavailable.

Thu 26th Apr 2018 11:30 BTC advised us of issues affecting ADSL internet access in various areas. Apparently their services were restored circa 11h00.

Tue 24th Apr 2018 11:35 BTC have advised us of a failure in their node in Phakalane. This may affect ADSL and leased line customers as well as other data services.

Mon 16th Apr 2018 10:12 Our link to Bofinet has been restored. Internet access should be returning to normal.

Mon 16th Apr 2018 09:39 Our link to Bofinet is down. There will be slow or no internet access while the problem is resolved.

Fri 16th Mar 2018 08:35 Some customers on the info.bw domain were unable to access their mailboxes. The problem has been resolved and we apologize for the inconvenience.

Tue 13th Mar 2018 10:45 BTC has repaired our ISDN switchboard line and our phione lines are now working properly.

Mon 12th Mar 2018 12:10 While all of our internet systems are working our BTC-supplied switchbaord lines are down. Customers are requested to contact us via email at support@info·bw

Sun 11th Mar 2018 22:55 A problem which was slowing mail delivery to some of our customers has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Fri 9th Mar 2018 09:55 Mail services have been fully restored

Fri 9th Mar 2018 07:15 Some of our customers are unable to access their mail. We are working to solve the problem and apologize for the inconvenience.

Tue 6th Mar 2018 20:50 Bofinet tell us that the problems with their RSA link have been resolved.

Tue 6th Mar 2018 14:43 We have been advised by Bofinet of instability with their link to an exchange point in RSA. Traffic to RSA destinations may be slow or intermittent but other internet traffic should be unaffected.

Thu 22nd Feb 2018 13:10 Bofinet has advised us of a fibre cut to the EASSY cable (in France) which is likely to result in slower internet access as trffic is routed to other cables.

Tue 20th Feb 2018 22:08 All services are now back to normal.

Tue 20th Feb 2018 21:24 Internet access via Bofinet is still down. Affected customers can reach the internet using one of our Proxy Servers (proxy.info.bw port 8080). There are some simple instructions on configuring your browser to use our proxy here .

Tue 20th Feb 2018 20:37 It appears that our optimism was misplaced. Internet access via Bofinet is still down.

Tue 20th Feb 2018 20:37 By 20:20 most BTC services and Bofinet services appear to have been restored. We are continuing to monitor services but are optimistic that that there has been a complete restoration of connectivity.

Tue 20th Feb 2018 20:05 At 19:51 BTC suffered a major power failure. From our perspective all internet connectivity, leased lines and ADSL service were affected. BTC expects services to be restored shortly.

Mon 19th Feb 2018 11:20 A problem which was preventing access to our webmail and also preventing some customers from accessing their mail has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Fri 16th Feb 2018 16:20 Bofinet advise us that their links at Teraco in RSA were restored at 12h46.

Fri 16th Feb 2018 09:39 Bofinet has advised us of link failures in RSA that are resulting in congestion on the remaining links. The may be delays in accessing some RSA websites until the problems are resolved.

Mon 19th Jan 2018 18:48 We have just received notification from Bofinet of planned work to be carried out every day for the next 5 days from 02h00 until 08h00 (i.e. ending at 08h00 on Sat 3rd Feb). The work may cause intermittent interruptions to traffic on the EASSY link in which event traffic ought to switch to a redundant link.

Wed 17th Jan 2018 08:05 The fibre cuts affecting RSA traffic have been repaired although we haven't had confirmation that traffic is now back to normal.

Wed 17th Jan 2018 07:55 Bofinet confirmed last night that the EASSY sub-sea fibre cut was repaired on 14th Jan and traffic was re-routed back to the EASSY link on 16th Jan.

Tue 16th Jan 2018 17:53 The fibre cut on the EASSY cable should have been repaired by now but despite repeated requests we canot get confirmation of this from our upstream providers.
Bofinet has advised us of multiple fibre cuts in RSA that they say will result in degraded access to sites in RSA.

Thu 11th Jan 2018 14:20 BTCL have explained that their internet outage, which lasted from 12:29 to 13:19 yesterday, was due to a routing problem between their peering and distribution servers. They have engaged their suppliers to investigate.

Thu 11th Jan 2018 13:27 It appears that BTCL's Internet connnectivity has been restored. We have had no official information as to the cause of the outage.

Thu 11th Jan 2018 13:05 Customers unable to access the internet are encouraged to use our proxy server which will at least allow for web access.
We have placed brief instructions here for customers who wish to use one of our proxy servers. The server name is proxy2.info.bw, the IP address is 197.234.208.2 although the name should be sufficient. The port number is 8080.

Thu 11th Jan 2018 12:55 BTCL have advised of problems with their Internet feed. We are awaiting more information.

Tue 9th Jan 2018 18:27 Bofinet has clarified that traffic will still be delivered to SAIX but there will be increased latency due to the sub-optimal routing.

Tue 9th Jan 2018 13:38 Bofinet has advised us of planned works to be carried out tomorrow, 10th Jan 2018 between 21h00 and 22h00 that will affect some internet traffic bound for RSA. In particular traffic normally handled by the South African Internet Exchange (SAIX) will be affected and it is unclear whether or not this traffic will be re-routed via other links.

Fri 5th Jan 2018 16:24 There are still quite a few customers unable to connect to our network over the BTCL ADSL infrastructure. In these circumstances we have often found it advisable to reconfigure the ADSL modem if turning it off and on again does not solve the problem.
We would advise against resetting the modem using the reset button unless you have all the configuration details. It may be useful for IT Technicians carrying out this process to know that the VPI/VCI combination is 0.35 and the protocol should be set to Routed PPP or PPPoE. The username should be entered on its own without a domain name. Please be aware that passwords are case-sensitive.

Fri 5th Jan 2018 04:24 BTCL finished their work reconfiguring our ADSL backhaul link. Unfortunately we see that although the majority of our customers are connected there are still some users are not able to connect to us. Any ADSL customers without internet access are requested to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Fri 5th Jan 2018 08:17 BTCL will be carrying out some emergency work on the link bringing ADSL traffic to our premises. The work is scheduled to start at 13:30 today and we hope that the work will be concluded within 30 mins. There may be intermittent interruptions to ADSL services while the work is carried out.

Tue 2nd Jan 2018 22:28 The EASSY submarine cable is still down with repair work scheduled to start on 8th Jan, weather permitting.

Fri 29th Dec 2017 07:70 It appears that the EASSY cable fault is a subsea cable cut and repairs are only scheduled to begin in the 2nd week of January by which time the seasonal drop in traffic will be over and congestion on alternative links will become more significant.

Thu 28th Dec 2017 07:40 Bofinet has advised us of a cable fault affecting the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSY). All EASSY traffic has been diverted to the West African Cable system (WACS). There may be some congestion on WACS due to the increased traffic resulting in slower browsing speeds.

Mon 25th Dec 2017 18:40 ADSL services have been restored. Customers may need to turn off their ADSL modems and turn them back on again in order to ensure that name resolution is working correctly.

Mon 25th Dec 2017 12:23 We are still working with BTC while they try to restore connectivity between our ADSL customers, via their MSU2 Exchange, and our premises in G'West. Regrettably we no longer have yesterday's optimism that they will resolve their problems quickly as they are still carrying out diagnostic tests and haven't discovered the source of the problem.

Sun 24th Sep 2017 23:58 BTC have still not fixed their MSU2-related issues and all of our ADSL customers are still offline. We understand that their team has stopped their investigations until tomorrow.

Sun 24th Sep 2017 17:31 We have been working with BTC to diagnose and address their problems at their MSU2 exchange. Fortunately they have sourced a replacement interface card locally and traffic has been restored to other affected ISPs and almost all businesses in the CBD and G'West. Unfortunately it appears that other hardware at MSU2 must have been burnt in the incident this morning and BTC has now engaged other resources to track down and repair the affected equipment.
BTC are hopeful that connectivity will be restored before the end of the day.
We understand that Santa's services run independently of the internet and will not be affected. We trust that full services will be restored in time for the family Skype and WhatsApp calls that are now such an important part of Christmas Day.

Sun 24th Sep 2017 14:07 We understand from BTC that there was an electrical fault at their MSU2 exchange this morning that, in addition to bringing down internet and other data services, damaged an interface card used to deliver ADSL traffic. BTC is trying to source a replacement card. If they don't manage to find the card locally then ADSL services may be down for a further 24 hours.

Sun 24th Sep 2017 08:35 BTC has restored some data services including leased lines to some customers as well as internet connectivity but ADSL services remain down.

Sun 24th Sep 2017 08:15 There has been a major failure at BTC resulting in a complete failure of the ADSL service and their internet connectivity. BTC do not have much information but state that the incident, which we see started at 07:00, involves a power failure and possibly other complications.

Wed 13th Dec 2017 15:13 Although some ADSL customers in Molepolole are back online most are still without service. Although it appeared that the damage from an electrical fire in BTC's Molepolole exchange was limited to controller cards and their frame it now transpires that cables were also damaged necessitating additional repair work.

Wed 13th Dec 2017 09:16 We have been notified by BTCL of an outage in Molepolole affecting ADSL customers there.

Tue 12th Dec 2017 14:22 BTCL have advised us of an outage afecting ADSL services to Hukuntsi.

Fri 8th Dec 2017 09:47 While BTCL have resolved their ADSL outage in Molepolole we now learn of a fibre cut which is affecting ADSL services to Lobatse, Jwaneng, Hukuntsi, Kang and Charleshill.

Fri 8th Dec 2017 08:07 We have been notified by BTCL of planned works to be carried out between 17h30 and 23h30 on Wed 13th Dec at their MSU2 exchange in G'West. Some ADSL customers will be affected for a period of 5 mins each. Any customers affected outside of the scheduled times are requested to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Fri 8th Dec 2017 07:58 BTCL have advised us of an outage of their ADSL services in Molepolole. We will provide an update if we are given any progress reports.

Wed 6th Dec 2017 18:30 Apparently the cable cut in RSA has been repaired and internet traffic should be returning to normal.

Wed 6th Dec 2017 11:59 We can confirm that the fibre cut in RSA is affecting traffic to the WACS (West African Cable System). Traffic is being re-routed to other links resulting in congestion (slow traffic) and high latency (slow round-trip times) which may cause degradation in time-sensitive traffic such as voice, or possibly failure of some traffic.
We understand that the failure is on top of a bridge between Mafikeng and Lichtenburg and technicains have only recently arrived on-site. There is no offical estimate of the time-to-repair but given the unusual location of the break we expect that the repair may take longer than usual if there are additional safety issues for the repair crew.

Wed 6th Dec 2017 11:40 We have been investigating instability in our internet service from Bofinet. Bofinet have advised us of a fibre cut in RSA and they technicians there are currently working to repair the link.

Mon 4th Dec 2017 15:19 Bofinet has made aware of planned engineering works to be carried out between 00h00 and 03h00 on Sat 9th Dec. During that time internet traffic on their WACS link will be affected. It is unclear if the traffic will be re-routed to their EASSY link for the duration of the works.

Mon 4th Dec 2017 09:40 BTCL has notified us of problems preventing customers accessing some websites. As far as we can tell from the explanation, this affects mainly BTCL's own customers and does not affect ourslelves or other ISPs unless their customers are configured on BTCL's own VPLS.

Mon 27th Nov 2017 08:57 A problem which was preventing some mail being sent to some of our users has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Fri 24th Nov 2017 11:10 We note that one of the Botswana (dot-bw) DNS servers, dns1.nic.net.bw, has been offline since 21h15 yesterday due to Bofinet fibre problems in the Phakalane area. The other dot-BW servers are functioning and there should be no impact on users due o DNS issues but the fibre problems may affect other services there.

Wed 22nd Nov 2017 17:11 Although most of our ADSL users are successfully accessing the internet through us there are some customers off-line and we request any customers unable to connect via ADSL to please contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.
BTCL are still investigating the cause of the outage and subsequent instability together with Ciso and Huawei but, as yet, they do not understand the root cause.

Tue 21st Nov 2017 18:23 We understand from Bofinet that the termination equipment in London for their EASSY traffic was the source of their problems. Having diverted the EASSY traffic onto their WACS link they are now planning to re-terminate the EASSY traffic on alternate infrastructure which should alleviate load on the WACS link and hopefully provide full thoughput for the EASSY traffic. The work, which should last up to 40 mins is scheduled for 23h00 today and should not result in any downtime.

Tue 21st Nov 2017 16:12 Bofinet has advised us of problems affecting their internet traffic transitting through London. The impact is unclear but it is possible that there may be congestion resulting in slow internet access while the traffic is re-routed.

Mon 20th Nov 2017 18:00 As far as we can tell almost all of our ADSL customers are able to reach our network and through us the internet. Any customers still experiencing difficulties should please contact our Service Desk on 365-6400. As we understand it BTCL are still failing to route all the appropriate traffic to some other ISPs.

Sat 18th Nov 2017 22:46 We understand from other ISPs that they have almost no users able to connect via ADSL. We are aware of a small number of our customers who are unable to connect to us via ADSL and we have passed their details to BTCL. We encourage any customers still unable to logon with ADSL to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400 or by email at support@info.bw.

Sat 18th Nov 2017 14:35 Many of our ADSL users who were cut off at 13:10 reconnected at about 13:47. We notice, paradoxically, that some out-of-Gaborone users who had been off for several days managed to reconnect at 13:10 leading us to suspect collisions or interference between BTC's various BRAS units. Other users who have been down for several days remain down.

Sat 18th Nov 2017 13:51 The problems with BTCL's ADSL service continue. At 13:10 all of our ADSL customers were disconnected and at present are unable to reconnect. BTCL have acknowledged the issue with an advisory sent to all ADSL ISPs. Despite this we are once again hearing reports that BTCL staff are denying that they have a problem and are blaming us (and presumably other ISPs) for the outage!
We understand that BTCL have been working throughout the night with Huawei on their MSU2 Broadband Remote Access Server (BRAS). There is no word as to when they will be able to restore services.

Sat 18th Nov There is no improvement with BTCL's ADSL service. As far as we can tell the situation is unchanged with users in various BTCL exchanges unable to connect to their respective ISPs. We suspect that BTCL reset their BRAS again at 05:02 this morning as we saw hundreds of customers disconnected at that time and only reconnecting some 6 minues later.

Fri 17th Nov 2017 16:30 We see that a short while ago a large number of our ADSL customers were disconnected then shortly after reconnected. As BTCL & Huawei continue their investigations such disconnections may reoccur.

Fri 17th Nov 2017 16:20 Apparently a number of ADSL customers at different national locations ar affected by the issues at BTC. It now seems that the problems may have started as far back as Tuesday. We are working with BTCL and their partner Huwaei to understand this problem which is affecting BTC ADSL services to several ISPs.

Fri 17th Nov 2017 11:14 It appears that some ADSL customers in Maun are still having connection problems possibly related to BTCL's BRAS problems yesterday. We are liaising with BTCL.

Thu 16th Nov 2017 14:02 A problems with BTCL's BRAS that knocked off many our ADSL users at 11:30 has been resolved. As yet all we know is that at least 3 ISPs were affected.

Thu 16th Nov 2017 08:55 BTCL has notified us of planned works to be carried out between 09:00 today and 14h00 today which will affect data services to some customers in Phakalane for up to 30 mins. Any customers affected for longer than 30 mins are encouraged to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Wed 8th Nov 2017 12:17 We have been advised by BTCL of further work to be carried out at their RLU9 exchange in Phakalane. Once again there may be 5 minute outages for voice and ADSL customers connected to that exchange. The work is scheduled for Thur 9th Nov from 15h00 until 18h00. Customers are requested to contact us on 364-6400 should they experience problems outside of those times.

Fri 3rd Nov 2017 08:52 BTCL has advised of planned works which may result in 5 minute outages in ADSL and voices services for customers connected to their RLU9 exchange in Phakalane. The work is scheduled to be carried out on Sun 5th Nov between 15h00 and 18h00. Any customers affected beyond the scheduled times are encouraged to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Thu 26th Oct 2017 11:31 For the third day running we are experiencing power outages in Gaborone West. We have been running on backup power since 10:20 but do not anticipate any problems with our services. Third-party providers, however, may be experiencing outages which affect their connectivity to the internet, the Botswana Internet Exchange or our network.

Thu 19th Oct 2017 11:46 The BW DNS is working properly after BOCRA yesterday re-signed the DNSSEC key for BW. For the sake of clarity we have provided some more information on the impact of yesterday's DNS problems in our Botswana DNS web page.

Wed 18th Oct 2017 16:42 It seems that the BW registry has managed to sign new keys for the BW domain and some DNS servers (such as Google) which had been refusing queries, are now responding.

Wed 18th Oct 2017 15:40 The problems caused by the DNSSEC key expiry continue. We confirmed with BOCRA this morning that they are working on renewing the expired key. For those who are interested we have a little more information on our Botswana DNS web page.

Wed 18th Oct 2017 11:04 We have have been unable to contact the dot-BW registry but can confirm that the problem is due to a failed DNSSEC signature for the .bw domain. Any DNS servers that provide DNSSEC validation (which includes Google's DNS servers and many others) will have problems resolving BW domains. We can see that the problem started at 05h09 today when a DNSSEC signature expired.

Wed 18th Oct 2017 10:48 We have noted that Botswana domains ending in .co.bw cannot be resolved by Google's DNS servers. Name resolution from the root servers all the way through to the .co.bw. name servers is working correctly. We suspect that the problem is more widespread as we have reports that RSA providers are also affected. The most likely scenario is that there was a failed attempt to apply DNSSEC signatures to the .co.bw. domain. We are trying to contact the dot-BW registry to ascertain if this is the case.

Thu 12th Oct 2017 14:20 Bofinet advise us that internet services via their RSA links are now back to normal.

Thu 12th Oct 2017 08:55 Yesterday a bush fire in RSA damaged fibre optic cables resulting in reduced internet capacity and congestion on alternative links. Although it was believed that the fibre had been fully repaired it appears that there is still congestion on this route. Internet access may therefore be slow pending full resolution of this problem.

Mon 9th Oct 2017 18:07 Bofinet has issued a new advisory about the planned works at Gabs RLU14 and Lobatse RLU2. We have edited and corrected the earlier anouncement and provided the new dates below:

  Gaborone RLU14 (GIFP - Opposite Game City Mall and GICP)
   Sun 15/10/17 00h00 - 04h00

  Lobatse RLU-2
   Mon 16/10/17 00h00 - 02h00

Sun 8th Oct 2017 16:29 Bofinet has advised us of planned engineering works that will affect ADSL and data access at the following exchanges at the dates and times specified

 
  Gaborone RLU14 (GIFP - Opposite Game City Mall and GICP)
   Tue 10/10/17 00h00 - 04h00

  Lobatse RLU-2
   Wed 11/10/17 00h00 - 02h00

Fri 29th Sep 2017 13:15 We have a problem with our switchboard and many of our lines are not working. We wopuld be grateful if those customers who cannot connect to us by phone could email us at support@info.bw and we will get back in touch with you. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Mon 25th Sep 2017 20:39 We note that BTCL restored their local connectivity at 18:40. Their DNS servers (including master.btc.net.bw which is a dot-BW name server) and mail their servers are now reachable.

Mon 25th Sep 2017 18:13 We note that connectivity between BTCL and other ISPs was lost at 16:07 today. We do not know the full extent of the outage. We have notified BTCL.

Fri 22nd Sep 2017 17:00 Nashua advise us that they should have resolved their routing problems by Monday.

Fri 22nd Sep 2017 12:17 We note continuing problems for customers trying to reach us and other ISPs from the NConnect network. Some customers who were previously able to reach us have been unable to do so since yesterday evening.

Wed 20th Sep 2017 16:25 Some of our customers have been using another ISP, NConnect, to retrieve mails and content from our network. They have apparently been experiencing problems reaching our network since about 13h45 today. The cause of the problem is a routing issue at NConnect. They are aware of this and are working to fix it.

Fri 15th Sep 2017 13:43 The gov.bw name servers became unreachable again at 00h30 this morning. Customers should expect difficulties sending mail to, or accessing sites on, the gov.bw. domain.

Tue 12th Sep 2017 09:41 Connectivity to the gov.bw nameservers was restored at 09:20. We note in passing that email delivery to gov.bw addresses from gmail.com have been failing over the past weekend due to DNS problems at gov.bw.
All of the above, it turns out, are independent of the fibre-cut mentioned below which is affecting customers in the block3 Industrial area in Gaborone.

Tue 12th Sep 2017 08:10 The gov.bw domain is currently unreachable as are some other sites possibly due to a fibre cut which Bofinet is working on.

Tue 5th Sep 2017 05:55 The mail problem below has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Tue 5th Sep 2017 05:30 We are investigating a problem affecting mail delivery to some of our corporate customers.

Mon 4th Sep 2017 16:45 Bofinet has notified us of short (5 minute) expected outages on each international internet link at various times between 23h00 and 23h30 on Thu 7th Sep 2017.

Mon 4th Sep 2017 16:42 Bofinet has advised of planned works to be carried out at Tereco in RSA that will incur increased latency (a symptom of which might be slower traffic) between midnight and 03h00 on Sun 10th Sep 2017.

Fri 25th Aug 2017 12:20 Following further investigations we suspect that the problems that were experienced from middday Wed until Thurs 10:05 accessing Yahoo! and various other online services including iCloud, Steam, XBoxlive were due to issues with Akamai services hosted by Bofinet. This has not yet been confirmed by Bofinet.

Thu 24th Aug 2017 11:11 We have been trying to investigate difficulties accessing Yahoo! services that started midday yesterday. Most mail was delayed and access to the https://www.yahoo.com website was restricted. As far as we can tell the problems were not due to our infrastructure or to our immediate upstream bandwidth providers. No traffic to other sites or regions appear to have been affected. Yahoo! services returned to normal at about 10:05 today and we have flushed all of our mail queues.

Tue 22nd Aug 2017 15:40 We have noticed a massive surge in spam ostensibly from pbx@local and presumably masqerading as messages from an Asterisk PABX. We are blocking such messages at our perimeter however customers also accepting mail using other networks should beware of such mails which will probably have a malicious payload.

Tue 22nd Aug 2017 15:10 BTCL has notified us of a problem with their RLU4 exchange which provides ADSL and data services to the Gaborone Village area.

Fri 18th Aug 2017 15:40 A number of our ADSL customers were disconnected from the BTCL ADSL network at 12:18 today. We have notified BTCL who are investigating.

Thu 3rd Aug 2017 15:48 To complete the autopsy on the WACS outage: it appears that some time after 08:00 am there was a fibre cut between Jwaneng and Kanye which disrupted the primary WACS route via Charleshill followed by a second fibre cut 2 hours later between Palapye and Serule which took out the backup WACS route via Ngoma. Matters were further complicated by a power failure at Sankoyo which also affect the Ngoma route. Currently WACS traffic is flowing via Ngoma.

Thu 3rd Aug 2017 13:55 We are cautiously optimistic that Bofinet have resolved their problem and internet access is back to normal. It appears that a fibre cut between Kanye + Jwaneng broke access to WACS via Charleshill in the West of the country. The routing then didn't failover to the backup route via Ngoma in the North of the country.

Thu 3rd Aug 2017 11:53 We now understand that Bofinet has a problem with their WACS (West African Cable System) link through Namibia. As traffic switches to the EASSY (East African Submarine Cable System) link and RSA links they are becoming congested. As far as we can tell there is little understanding as yet of the cause of the problem so there is no proper estimate as to when services will be restored.

Thu 3rd Aug 2017 11:29 We have finally got confirmation from BTCL that there is a problem with their upstream bandwidth from Bofinet. There was initial confusion as they appear to have had a separate problem with Phikwe and Francistown. As yet there is no estimate of a time-to-fix.

Thu 3rd Aug 2017 11:10 Internet access has been unstable since 10:15. We are contacting our upstream providers to investigate.

Thu 3rd Aug 2017 07:35 A problem which prevented some users from sending outgoing mail from 07:15 to 07:25 has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thu 27th Jul 2017 16:58 BTCL has notified us of a router failure in Mahalapye that may affect internet customers including ADSL there.

Tue 25th Jul 2017 09:41 Bofinet has advised us of planned works to be carried out to upgrade the capacity of their EASSY cable link. The EASSY link will be down from 09h00 until 17h00 on Sat 29th July and traffic will be diverted onto the WACS link. Due to weekend traffic patterns we are hopeful that they may avoid serious congestion during that time.

Fri 21st Jul 2017 08:22 We remind our customers of continued planned works detailed here which will result in data and ADSL outages at the times and places listed. The remaining tasks which each include downtimes from 00h00 to 02h00 are:

08/08/17 Gabs RLU 14 (GIFP) 
08/08/17 Gabs RLU 1  (B'Hurst) 	
09/08/17 Gabs RLU 9  (Phakalane)
10/08/17 Molepolole   	
10/08/17 Thebephatswa 
15/08/17 Bobonong RLU
15/08/17 Moeng

Thu 20th Jul 2017 19:00 BTCL's ADSL services in Broadhurst have been restored.

Thu 20th Jul 2017 17:22 We see that a number of ADSL users in Phakalane were disconnected at 16:31. BTCL have confirmed that their ADSL node there is down and are investigating.

Wed 19th Jul 2017 13:58 BTCL has advised us of a suspected fibre cut that may be impacting ADSL and data services in Thamaga and Moshupa.

Tue 4th Jul 2017 17:40 BTCL has notified us planned works to be carried out tonight between 20h00 and 20h10 which will result in brief outages for wireless ADSL customers served by the following nodes:

   Megaleng (BTCL HQ in Gaborone)
   Ramotswa
   Mokolodi

Any customers experiencing lack of service after the specified period are requested to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Thu 20th Jun 2017 11:15 A problem that was delaying delivery of some mail to some RSA destinations has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Fri 23rd Jun 2017 15:59 BTCL has advised of planned work to be carried out in Gumare migrating customers from the Alcatel BRAS to a Huawei unit. The work is scheduled to last from 16h00 today (i.e. about now!) until midnight tonight. Individual customers should only be disconnected for about 10 minutes. Any Gumare customers experiencing extended downtime are encouraged to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Thu 22nd Jun 2017 08:51 We have observed problems reaching some destinations in RSA and elsewhere. We are investigating with our upstream providers.

Fri 16th Jun 2017 16:21 Bofinet has advised us of a series of planned upgrades to their infrastructure that has the potential to cause outages for customers on both Bofinet and BTCL networks. The work is scheduled to run from Mon 19th Jun to Tue Aug 15th. Down time is limited to 00h00 to 02h00 on certain days. Bofinet's schedule is available here

Fri 16th Jun 2017 07:24 As far as we are aware BTCL's overnight changes had no impact on our customers. Any customers experiencing difficulties especially those connecting from BTCL's network are requested to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Thu 15th Jun 2017 16:12 We have received notice from BTCL of engineering works planned for this evening. The work centres around the introduction of an IP address management system and will entail replacing their DNS and DHCP servers (and NTP services on those servers).
Although, in theory, this should only affect BTCL customers and BTCL-hosted domains and websites it appears that they will be making programmatic changes on network infrastructure which also serves ourselves and other ISPs. As such there is a possibility of general outages during the time alloted for the task which is set to run from 23h00 tonight until 01h00 tomorrow.

Thu 15th Jun 2017 16:06 As far as we can tell since 15:25 all BTCL customers have been able to access our network to send/receive mail, open/update websites, ftp servers etc. Any customers still experiencing difficulties are requested to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Thu 15th Jun 2017 15:00 We earlier notifed BTCL about the routing problems experienced by their customers and we see that some of them are now able to reach our network but we see that some BTCL leased line customers still cannot.

Thu 15th Jun 2017 14:22 BTCL customers are unable to connect to our network since BTCL's overnight engineering work.

Thu 15th Jun 2017 13:45 BTCL restored our internet bandwidth just after midday.

Thu 15th Jun 2017 10:23 It appears that our internet feed via BTCL has been reduced in capacity since BTCL's network "upgrades" last night. This may result in congestion for some users while browsing the internet. BTCL have been notified.

Thu 15th Jun 2017 09:23 BOCRA have confirmed that that unreachability of the dns1.nic.net.bw DNS server was as a consequence of BTCL's work last night. The network routing was corrected and service restored at 08:49. We are unaware of any further problems with BTCL's network.

Thu 15th Jun 2017 08:48 We understand from speaking to BTCL that they were carrying out network upgrades last night. Coincident with these outages we lost touch with dns1.nic.net.bw one of the DNS SERVERS for the dot-BW domain. This may be evidence of residual network problems but we have been unable to verify this with either BTCL or BOCRA (who host the server).

Thu 15th Jun 2017 07:26 We observed 2 interruptions to BTCL services overnight from 00h11 to 01h19 and from 01h59 to 02h11. BTCL traffic to some customers was affected at slightly different times. There were no scheduled works that we were notified of. Bofinet bandwidth was unaffected.

Mon 12th Jun 2017 11:22 We understand that there are a small number of ADSL customers who still have no internet access since BTCL resolved their issue with their BRAS equipment on Sat. BTCL is unable to see those customers' modems and request that we ask them to turn the modems off then on. Any ADSL customers still without internet access are requested to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Sat 10th Jun 2017 12:58 Following efforts by Huawei and BTCL the abnormal traffic that we were observing being directed at our equipment has now ceased. The last mass disconnections we noted occurred at 12:10 which we suspect were related to the measures taken by BTCL. Currently traffic patterns are normal and we are hopeful that the incident is at an end.

Sat 10th Jun 2017 10:45 Although we have many more customers connected than yesterday we are still seeing abnormal traffic patterns and some ADSL customers are still unable to connect. We have not yet had our briefing from BTCL.

Sat 10th Jun 2017 10:15 At 10:05 we saw a number of ADSL customers reconnecting. We are awaiting a meeting with BTCL so we can be informed of progress resolving the issue with their BRAS.

Fri 9th Jun 2017 23:00 The problems with BTCL's ADSL service continue. Huawei are working with BTCL to resolve the matter.

Fri 9th Jun 2017 18:55 We are currently working with BTCL as they try to debug and resolve their problem with their BRAS devices. During this time customers server by different BTCL BRAS devices around the country may be disconnected for a period of time.

Fri 9th Jun 2017 16:38 A short while ago BTCL confirmed that ADSL problem is associated with their Gaborone-based Huawei BRAS equipment and they have escalated the problem to their supplier.

Fri 9th Jun 2017 15:34 BTCL's ADSL network problems are ongoing. We are informed that they still don't understand the cause of the behaviour.

Fri 9th Jun 2017 12:02 The instability with BTCL's ADSL network continues with users being continuously disconnected and many being unable to re-logon. This is reminiscent of the problems that plagued BTCL from Wed 22nd Mar until Sat 25th Mar when many of our users experienced the same behaviour. On that occasion BTCL only managed to resolve the issue by re-booting one of their Huawei BRAS devices without ever discovering the root cause of the problem.
Currently the only information we have from BTCL is that they are investigating and will inform us when they know more.

Fri 9th Jun 2017 09:55 BTCL is experiencing a problem on its ADSL network which is causing ADSL customers to be disconnected. The problem is being experienced by other ISPs in addition to ourselves.

Thu 8th Jun 2017 11:45 BTCL have advised us of planned works to be carried out at their Dumela exchange in Francistown that will affect ADSL customers their for a period of 5 minutes each at varous times between 08h00 and 18h00 on Sat 10th Jun 2017.

Thu 8th Jan 2017 07:42 We have been notified by BTCL of a fibre cut that occurred yesterday morning between Palapye and Francsitown. Data services across most of Northern Botswana are affected. ADSL customers served by Alcatel DSLAMs in Phikwe and Francistown are down.

Wed 7th Jun 2017 08:45 BTCL have informed us of a power failure in Orapa affecting data services to Maun, Shakawe, Gumare, Charleshill & Gantsi. ADSL services to Mosu, Orapa and Makalamabedi are also impacted.

Fri 2nd Jun 2017 21:34 BPC power was finally restored at 20h07 and seems to have been stable since then.

Fri 2nd Jun 2017 15:38 We have been running on backup power since 14:55 due to a BPC power failure affecting our part of Gaborone West. We do not anticipate any outage but we cannot answer for third party services such as BTCL and Bofinet.

Fri 2nd Jun 2017 10:00 Apparently BTCL was carrying out some unscheduled maintenance just after midday yesterday. As a result all ADSL customers in Ramotswa were disconnected. They have since been restoring service to the customers one-by-one. Any Ramotswa customers without ADSL service are requested to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Thu 1st Jun 2017 11:20 A number of ADSL customers have been unable to connect to our network and thence to the internet via ADSL since early morning. We have been working with BTCL who have been reconfiguring those customers one by one. Currently about a dozen customers are still affected. We understand that the problem may be related configuration errors consequent to BTCL's migration of customers from their old BRAS equipment onto their Huawei BRAS devices.

Tue 30th May 2017 12:12 BTCL's power problem at Tati Siding has been resolved.

Tue 30th May 2017 08:30 We have been advised by BTCL of a power failure affecting their TransKalahari network element at Tati Siding. Affected services include data including ADSL services to Tati Siding, Serule and Tonota.

Mon 29th May 2017 11:12 BTCL have notified us of planned works scheduled for tonight at 20h00 which will affect Wireless ADSL services based at Gaborone RLUs 13 and 14 (Fairgrounds and Finance Park respectively). The work should be completed by 20h10.

Tue 23rd May 2017 09:40 BTCL have advised us of planned works which will interrupt ADSL services to customers server by the following exchanges between 20h00 and 20h10 tonight Tue May 23rd 2017.

  ADSL customers - F/Town Abbatoir Asam
  Wireless ADSL customers - Gaborone RLU2
  Wireless ADSL customers - Gaborone RLU4

Gaborone RLU 2 serves Broadhurst Between Tsholofelo, Ext 27, Community Hall, Private Hospital & Broadhurst Primary
Gaborone RLU 4 serves the Village area.

Mon 22nd May 2017 14:25 We have observed abnormal traffic patterns on our international links and suspect link failure and congestion upstream. The impact of this would be slow or intermittent internet browsing and possible delays in mail delivery. We are trying to get a response from our upstream bandwidth suppliers.

Fri 19th May 2017 15:53 The gov.bw nameservers are still unreachable. For some time mail to addressees at mopipi.ub.bw has been undelilverable. This is due to a non-existent delegation of the domain from the ub.bw nameservers.

Thu 18th May 2017 07:40 The gov.bw DNS servers have been intermittently unreachable for several years resulting in delays in sending to or receiving mails from addresses on the gov.bw domain as well as difficulties in accessing Government websites.
Since yesterday morning the situation has worsened as the gov.bw namservers are unreachable from any source.

Wed 18th May 2017 07:30 BTCL have notified us of planned engineering work that will interrupt all internet traffic carried through BTCL's Botsgate service. The work is planned to last from 01h30 until 02h30 on Thu 18/05/17. Mon 15th May 2017 08:59 Bofinet internet access has been restored and we are monitoring to ensure the link is stable.

Mon 15th May 2017 08:25 The issue with internet access via Bofinet appears to be due to engineering works they were carrying out last night. Affected customers can get internet access by using our proxy server proxy.info.bw on port 8080. They can call our Service Desk on 364-6500 for assistance in doing this. They can also leave their detiails with us if they would like to be notified once service is fully restored.

Mon 15th May 2017 07:50 We are investigating a problem with our internet access over Bofinet bandwidth. BTCL internet access seems to be unaffected.

Fri May 12th 2017 17:21 Access to USA site was restored at 17:08 and appears to have been stable since then. We have had no update from our upsgtream suppliers.

Fri May 12th 2017 16:40 We note difficulty accessing sites in the USA since 16:27 and we are trying to contact BTCL.

Tue May 9th 2017 14:13 BTCL have advised us of planned works to migrate ADSL customers from their Alcatel equipment at their F'Town airport and Lobatse Woodhall Isam access nodes onto their new Huawei BRAS. The works are planned to last from 20h00 until 20h10 tonight Tue May 9th 2017. Any customers affected after the planned times are encouraged to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Tue May 9th 2017 14:05 Bofinet have notified us that they have changed the start times in their programme of engineering changes listed in the previous item. From the 11th May until the end of the programme on 19th May the outages will be from midnight until 02h00 the following day.

Fri 5th May 2017 15:05 We remind our customers of the service notification of Thu 13th Apr 2017 detailing Bofinet engineering works that may affect data access including ADSL up until 19/05/17. The dates and exchanges are listed in this table: this table The outages will last from 22h00 until midnight on the days specified. Please contact our Service Desk on 365-6400 if you are affected after the stated times.

Fri 5th May 2017 14:55 BTCL have notified us of a probable fibre cut between their exchanges in Gaborone and Lobatse. Affected services may include leased line, data services and ADSL services in Lobatse, Ramotswa, Moshupa and neighbouring areas. Data services to Kanye, Hukuntsi, Tsabong, Pitsane, Mathethe may also be affected.

Sat Apr 29th 2017 17:39 We notices some anomalies in our internation internet access prior to 08h00 this morning. The apparent cause was with Bofinet's upstream providers. The matter was resolved quickly and currently internet access is normal.

Wed Apr 26th 2017 17:33 Bofinet has notified us of planned works that will affect internet access for all customers at the following dates and times:

 2nd May 23h00 to 23h10
 3rd May 23h00 to 23h10

Any customers experiencing internet access problems after the stated times should please contactour Service Desk on 365-6400

Tue 25th Apr 2017 17:50 A problem that was causing mail for some of our customers to be delayed has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Tue 25th Apr 2017 08:20 We remind our customers of the service notification of Thu 13th Apr 2017 detailing Bofinet engineering works that may affect data access up until 19/05/17.

Thu 20th Apr 2017 18:10 BTCL have notified us of planned engineering works that will affect ADSL access for customers in Kazungula and Molepolole between 20h00 and 20h15 tomorrow 21st April 2017. Any customers affected after that period are advised to call our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Thu 13th Apr 2017 18:00 Bofinet have notified us of planned works that may affect data services including ADSL at the dates and exchanges listed in this table: this table The whole programme of work is scheduled to run from 18/04/17 until 19/05/17. The outages will last from 22h00 until midnight on the days specified. Please contact our Service Desk on 365-6400 if you are affected after the planned times.

Thu 6th Apr 2017 12:07 The Bofinet routing issue that was preventing some sites hosted in RSA from being reached from some IP ranges has been resolved by Bofinet working with their upstream suppliers. BTCL has removed the temporary workaround they had implemented. Any customers having difficulty accessing sites in RSA or other large sites that might be hosted in the cloud are requested to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Thu 6th Apr 2017 08:55 There was a problem reaching some IP addresses hosted on edge-of-network servers in RSA. The problem only arose on BTCL traffic routed via Bofinet to RSA. BTCL has enabled a work-around while they resolve the matter with Bofinet.

Tue 4th Apr 2017 07:15 The congestion problem mentioned below was resolved last night.

Mon 3rd Apr 2017 16:36 We have identified a problem with an upstream bandwidth provider that appears to be causing unnecessary congestion and slowing internet access. We hope that this can be resolved quickly.

Thu 30th Mar 2017 10:16 There are delays sending mail to addresses at the gov.bw domain. Delivery to the gov.bw mail servers has been sporadic for an extremely long time. The problems, which are due to DNS resolution problems with the gov.bw nameservers, date back years as can be seen by searching for gov.bw below or on our Botswana DNS web page. Many gov.bw users resort to using public mail services such as gmail to overcome this problem.

Wed 29th Mar 2017 08:47 We have observed queues of undeliverable mail for a number of Botswana domains. The ultimate cause of the problem is that the Registrations for those domains have expired. This does not affect any domains hosted by us but the owners of any affected domains should contact their ISPs who can help them to locate their Domain Registrars.

Tue 28th Mar 2017 08:14 We note that the ns1.cocca.cx and ns2.cocca.cx name servers have been stable since 16:46 yesterday.

Mon 27th Mar 2017 11:10 We have noticed periodic problems resolving nic.net.bw domain names. Two of the DNS servers for nic.net.bw, ns1.cocca.cx and ns2.cocca.cx, have only been intermittently available since 01:43 this morning. Ultimately the nic.net.bw domain is important for the efficient operation of Botswana's DNS as we mention on our Botswana DNS web page.

Mon 27th Mar 2017 11:00 BTCLs ADSL service appears to have been stable since their equipment reset at 13:50 on Sat. Any customers unable to connect are encouraged to contact our service desk on 365-6400.

Sat 25th Mar 2017 16:11 Many of our ADSL customers have now managed to reconnect. In case of difficulty we advise turning off the ADSL modem and waiting 5 mins before turning it on again. Customers who are faced with a "Connect" screen asking if they should connect should click on "Connect".
It is safe to turn the ADSL modem off and on again but we advise against using the recessed "Reset" button to restore the modem to factory defaults unless you know what you are doing and have the configuration details.
IT Technicians may like to know that the VPI/VCI combination is 0.35 and the protocol is Routed PPP or PPPoE. The username should be entered without a domain name and passwords are case-sensitive.

Sat 25th Mar 2017 14:34 We are cautiously optimistic that ADSL services have been restored to normal. Unfortunately in an effort to get customers back online BTCL equipment has been reset and the exact cause of the outage has not been fully determined. Both BTG and our service providers BTCL, will be on standby and monitoring the service. Any customers still without ADSL service are encouraged to contact our service Desk on 365-6400 or, if they have alternative internet access, to send a mail to support@info.bw.

Sat 25th Mar 2017 10:11 BTCL is about to conduct tests that will cut off many ADSL users.

Sat 25th Mar 2017 09:47 We have been informed by BTCL that they are going to be continuing their tests and we see that the interference from the MSU2 BRAS has resumed and customer links are being interrupted.

Fri 24th Mar 2017 20:05 BTCL have confirmed that their Huawei BRAS at MSU2 in G'West has been causing the instability that has affected most of our ADSL customers since Wed morning. They have escalated the matter to the equipment suppliers in China. In the meantime the offending equipment has been isolated from our network and the majority of users should be able to connect.
Unfortunately customers served by the MSU2 exchange, which includes customers in G'West, will not have access until the problem is resolved.
We expect services to be fully restored this weekend.

Fri 24th Mar 2017 17:24 Finally some positive news about BTCL's ADSL service. They have confirmed that the instability in the network is being caused by equipment associated with their MSU2 exchange in Gaborone. While they continue to try to narrow it down there will probably be some more outages however.

Fri 24th Mar 2017 14:16 The vast majority of our ADSL customers still have no ADSL service. Those who do manage to connect are often later disconnected. We have provided debug information to BTCL and they are now carrying out network changes to isolate the source of interference traffic. Some of the few customers who are connected may be disconnected during this process.

Fri 24th Mar 2017 14:09 We have been advised by BTCL that ADSL services are down in Dumela, F'Town.

Fri 24th Mar 2017 09:31 BTCL has advised us that ADSL services in Oodi are currently down.

Fri 24th Mar 2017 07:45 The problem with ADSL persists however we note that gradually more customers have managed to connect. We advise customers to avoid disconnecting their ADSL modems as reconnecting will be problematic.

Thu 23rd Mar 2017 23:43 The dire situation of ADSL service to our customers remains unchanged although we have identified certain traffic patterns that may indicate a problem source.

Thu 23rd Mar 2017 18:40 We have been in contact with BTCL and through them with Huawei throughout the day. Although they are investigating the problem with ADSL access we don't seem to be any further on. We can make alternative arrangements for mail delivery for customers if that is a measure that be of assistance. In that case please contact our Service Desk on 365-6400 where our staff will be pleased to assist.

Thu 23rd Mar 2017 09:25 The majority of our customers still have no ADSL access. We have engaged with BTCL and Huawei and they continue to carry out tests.

Thu 23rd Mar 2017 07:30 Although we now have many more users connected via ADSL we believe the fundamental problem remains. We understand that the supplier, Huawei, has been working on the issue overnight although we have had no meaningful feedback.
We anticipate that there may be more interruptions to ADSL traffic before the problem is finally resolved.

Wed 22nd Mar 2017 21:15 Having finished stabilising their node BTCL returned to the problem of the ADSL traffic but having failed to make any progress they have now escalated the issue to the supplier of their BRAS, Huawei who they expect to work on the problem overnight.

Wed 22nd Mar 2017 16:58 BTCL have advised us that one of their nodes which happens to be serving us with Internet & other services is overloaded. They tell us that while their staff are trying to "stabilise" the node our Internet traffic via BTC and our links to BTCL carrying our customers' ADSL traffic will being going up and down.

Wed 22nd Mar 2017 16:41 The majority of our ADSL customers still have no service. We noted recently large numbers being disconnected then reconnected. BTCL confirms that some nodes were going down and up and the presumption is that their teams are resetting devices while troubleshooting.

Wed 22nd Mar 2017 15:50 We finally got an update from BTCL. They have identified that it is only lines being serviced by their Huwaei-supplied BRAS that are experiencing problems. BRAS stands for Broadband Remote Access Server and in this context the BTCL BRAS is one of the devices that aggregates traffic from multiple DSLAMs (DSL Multiplexers) and forwards it to our own BRAS. The have given an undertaking to get our users reconnected today.
We note in passing that we had confirmation from another ISP this morning that they were also affected by this outage and passed that information onto BTCL.

Wed 22nd Mar 2017 14:50 We are struggling to get an update on the ADSL outage from BTCL. We have observed some customers reconnecting throughout the day but only a few.
We request all affected customers to please contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Wed 22nd Mar 2017 09:17 From our records, and after consulting with BTCL, it appears that they had some equipment problems earlier this morning on their ADSL network. We observed issues at 06:59 and 07:10. Many users have been unable to reconnect since those times. We are continuing to investigate this with BTCL. Any customers affected are requested to contact our support desk on 365-6400 so that can work with BTCl on their links and also so that we can notify them once service is restored.

Wed 22nd Mar 2017 07:57 As far as we can tell the problem with ADSL that we are experiencing is related to a fibre link to BTCL. We are working with them to resolve the issue.

Wed 22nd Mar 2017 07:44 We are investigating a problem affecting connectivity for ADSL customers.

Tue 21st Mar 2017 11:45 BTCL has informed us of an outage affecting ADSL services in Tati Siding. Their expected time to resolve the issue is 12h30 today.

Wed 15th Mar 2017 11:59 A problem affecting internet access for a small group of our ADSL customers has been fixed. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Wed 1st Mar 2017 15:35 We are investigating severe slowness for some of our ADSL customers.

Tue 28th Feb 2017 11:09 BTCL has advised us of planned works to be carried out on wed 1st Mar 2017 at 17h00. ADSL services to Gaborone Fairgrounds and Showgrounds will be interrupted for a period of 5 mins. Customers whose ADSL service is affected outside of the advised times are encouraged to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Mon 27th Feb 2017 08:30 We have been notified by BTCL of a failure at their NGN node in Shoshong that is affecting ADSL services in that Village. Their estimated time to fix is 10h15.

Tue 21st Feb 2017 15:30 BTCL has advised us that their data & ADSL problem in Sebele has been resolved.

Tue 21st Feb 2017 08:02 BTCL has just notified us of an outage in their ADSL system affecting data and ADSL services in Sebele, Glen Valley and nearby areas since 23h36 yesterday.

Mon 20th Feb 2017 15:53 BTCL has advised us of planned engineering works that will affect ADSL customers connected to the NGN node of their ADSL network at their MSU2 Exchange (Gaborone Megaleng). The work is scheduled for Tues 21st Feb 2017 at 23h00 and should last for just 5 minutes. Any customers experiencing ADSL problems after the Tues 21st are requested to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Wed 15th Feb 2017 16:55 We observed a problem with BTCL's ADSL network in the Broadhurst area just prior to 10:00 this morning and reported it to BTCL. They later confirmed the following exchanges appear to be affected:

  RLU1-IND3-NGN     Broadhurst Industrial and Parts of block 3
  RLU2              Broadhurst 
  RLU7              Block 8 
  RLU8-NGN          Sebele & Block 10
  RLU10-NGN         SSKA 
  RLU12-NGN         Tsholofelo
  DTC/Debswana-NGN  DTC 
  Ditima-NGN        Block 7

It appears that the problem has finally been resolved and the last of those affected has now been reconnected. We encourage any ADSL customers without service to please contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Mon 13th Feb 2017 12:28 BTCL has also advised us of a network failure affecting data services including ADSL to Kasane, Nata, Tutume and Marapong.

Mon 13th Feb 2017 12:28 BTCL has advised us of a BPC mains failure in Sepopa which is affecting data services including ADSL to Shakawe and Gumare.

Mon 13th Feb 2017 07:50 Bofinet has warned us of major repair works planned for the EASSY submarine cable. The repairs will result in approx 10 hours downtime ont the EASSY link tentatively sheduled for Sat 18th Feb 2017. We will provide further details of the timing and impact as they become available.

Wed 8th Feb 2017 07:34 BTCL have informed us of planned works to be carried out at their RLU-14 exchange at 17h00 today. The work is expected to affect ADSL customers in GICP and GIFP for a period of 5 minutes. Any customers in those areas who are affected after taht time are encouraged to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Mon 6th Feb 2017 18:00 It appears that BTCL started their planned works in Phakalane earlier than advertised, i.e. at 16:48. However, as far as we can tell, ADSL services there are now back to normal.

Mon 6th Feb 2017 11:10 We have been advised by BTCL of work scheduled to be carried out at their MSU-1 exchange in Gaborone (Megaleng) between 23h00 on Tues 7th Feb and 06h00 on Wed 8th Feb. It is anticipated that only leased line and frame-relay services routed via MSU-1 will be affected.

Mon 6th Feb 2017 10:52 BTCL have been struggling with their ATM data node in Orapa since Sat morning. The node was thought to have been repaired but subsequently went down again. It may have now been repaired but we have no confirmation of this. ADSL services in Mopipi, Mosu, Charleshill and Rakops are affected.
(In this instance ATM refers to a broadband technology known as Asynchronous Transfer Mode, and not to a bank Automated Teller Machine.)

Mon 6th Feb 2017 10:52 BTCL have advised us of planned work to be carried out on their RLU9 exchange in Phakalane today. ADSL services to that exchange will be down for 5 mins starting at 17h00. Any customers whose service is affected after that time are encouraged to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Wed 1st Feb 2017 17:34 The cocca.cx nameservers mentioned below appear to have returned to normal at 09h51 this morning.

Wed 1st Feb 2017 11:00 BTCL report that their problem in Mochudi has been resolved.

Wed 1st Feb 2017 08:47 Although Bofinet has not yet had confirmation from their upstream providers it appears that there is again traffic on their EASSY link and we are hopeful that the repairs have been completed.

Wed 1st Feb 2017 07:20 We note that two name servers critical for the efficient running of Botswana's DNS have been intermittently unavailable since 04:04 this morning. The servers, ns1.cocca.cx & ns2.cocca.cx, are the only name servers for the nic.net.bw domain. Three out of the 5 name servers for the dot-BW domainv are themselves hosted on the nic.net.bw domain. At the time of writing the master.btc.net.bw name server, one of the two remaining BW name servers cannot, in the current circumstances, be resolved, leaving only ns-bw.afrinic.net to handle delegation of the dot-BW namespace. The impact of the above is possible delays in name resolution as well as an increased risk of the BW domain becoming completely unreachable should that last server be unavailable for any reason.
We document Botswana DNS-related issues on our Botswana DNS page.

Tue 31st Jan 2017 16:18 BTCL have informed us of an equipment failure in their Mochudi exchange that apparently happened at 17h42 yesterday. They have had intermittent service on ADSL there since then and they are still investigating the cause.

Tue 31st Jan 2017 07:20 Bofinet have notified us that their EASSY (East African Submarine Cable System) link is down. Their upstream provider is carrying out repairs which might take until this evening to be completed. In the meantime traffic will be carried over other links but will be slow due to congestion.

Mon 30th Jan 2017 13:56 BTCL have warned us of planned works to be carried out at 17:00 on Tue 31st Jan. Those affected will be ADSL customers connected to BTCL's RLU6 exchange which serves Gaborone Phase 4, Block 9 and parts of Block 5. The outage is expected to last just 5 minutes. If any customers are without service after this time period then they are encouraged to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Fri 27th Jan 2017 15:45 We have noticed on three recent occasions at 15:21, 15:25 and 15:26 a large number of ADSL customers being disconnected from the ADSL network. In particular the Block 3 area in Gaborone has been affected. We suspect that this is a transient BPC issue but we encourage any users who remain offline to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Mon 16th Jan 2017 09:40 A problem which was preventing some customers from receiving smtp mail this morning has been resolved. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

Tue 13th Dec 2016 13:45 BTCL have informed us of a cable cut caused by Francistown City Council excavations that is affecting services to the F'Town MSU-2 exchange. 1000 fibre pairs were severed yesterday and the expected time to restore services (21h00 yesterday) has been exceeded.

Tue 13th Dec 2016 13:45 Bofinet have notified us of planned works which will affect internet access via their network from Thu 15th Dec 23h00 until 23h30.

Tue 13th Dec 2016 12:40 We lost internet connectivity via BTCL from 12:05 until 12:09 and from 12:20 until 12:29. We are unable to get a reply from BTCL at this time.

Fri 2nd Dec 2016 09:13 We have been informed that the RSA network failure was resolved at 08:28 today.

Fri 2nd Dec 2016 08:04 We continue to see delays accessing server in RSA which we atribute to the, as yet unresolved, transmission problem between Zeerust and Pretoria.

Thu 1st Dec 2016 16:40 BTCL have informed us of a network failure affecting their links to the South African Internet Exchange (SAIX). RSA traffic will be routed over other links but there may be congestion resulting in slow access.

Thu 1st Dec 2016 13:56 We lost BPC power again at 12:37 in what seems now to be a daily outage. We are running on backup power but do not anticipate any service interruptions.

Thu 1st Dec 2016 10:15 BTCL appear to have fixed their problems at 10:07. Their interim analysis blamed an unspecified issue with their Metro-Ethernet network.

Thu 1st Dec 2016 09:50 We did not get any explanation from BTCL about the outage last Fri. The pattern of the current outage appears to be the same and we have reported this at BTCL's National Control Centre (NCC). Customers, including ADSL customers, being served by Bofinet bandwidth are unaffected. ISPs (including BTCL themselves) who normally connect to the BINX via BTCL bandwidth are unable to do so.

Thu 1st Dec 2016 109:28 We lost all BTCl-supplied connectivity at 09:03. We are trying to contact BTCL.

Wed 30th Nov 2016 12:12 Power has again failed in G'West we do not anticipate any outages in our own services but cannot make any promises for 3rd party providers.

Wed 30th Nov 2016 11:10 BTCL has just notified us of a failure in their ADSL services in the Dukwi area that occurred yesterday at 17h30. The estimated time-to-fix (07h00 today) has already expired.

Tue 29th Nov 2016 17:05 Power was restored in G'West shortly before 17h00.

Tue 29th Nov 2016 14:45 We have been running on backup power for some time due to a power cut affecting part of Gaborone West. We do not anticipate any outage but other third-party providers may have problems.

Fri 25th Nov 2016 08:09 At 07:48 we lost all BTCL services including leased lines and internet bandwidth. Services were restored at 08:07. We have not, as yet, had an explanation from BTCL.

Thu 24th Nov 2016 08:46 Although the BW DNS has been repaired we still notice isolated instances where DNS resolution is causing problems. These are due to applications or services using cached DNS responses from earlier queries. In the worst case it could take up to 48 hrs for DNS changes to propagate.
Any customers stil having problems related to the recent DNS problems are encouraged to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400 where our staff will try to be of assistance.

Wed 23rd Nov 2016 16:55 We note that BOCRA has fixed the signatures of the DNSSEC DS record and we are hopeful that dot-BW domains will now begin to resolve correctly. For those who are interested we document Botswana DNS-related issues on our Botswana DNS page.

Wed 23rd Nov 2016 10:55 There is a major problem with the Botswana DNS whereby many DNS servers on the internet are unable to resolve very many Botswana domain names. Yesterday we escalated the problem to BOCRA who manage the dot-BW DNS.
The impact of this DNS failure is that many Botswana websites may be unreachable from the internet and even from within Botswana. Furthermore mail may not be deliverable to many Botswana domins. In some cases mail servers may refuse to accept mail if the domain of the sender cannot be resolved.
The cause of the problem appears to be that the DNSSEC (Secure DNS) records at the Botswana DNS registry were allowed to expire.

Tue 22nd Nov 2016 12:45 We have noticed a problem with the Botswana DNS and are investigating.

Tue 22nd Nov 2016 08:44 BTCL have just informed us of an ADSL outage that occurred in Thamaga at 20h10 yesterday. They do not indicate that they have restored services.

Mon 21st Nov 2016 11:35 BTCL restored connectivity at their RLU10 exchange (located at SSK International Airport) at 11:21.

Mon 21st Nov 2016 10:30 We lost connectivity to a number of customers at 10:05 we are investigating the cause of the problem.

Mon 14th Nov 2016 09:50 We are investigating slow internet access and connectivity issues from some ADSL customers. BTCL inform us that they are experiencing some problems with ADSL but the cause is not yet known. Any affected customers are encouraged to call our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Thu 10th Nov 2016 18:53 We never got a response from BTCL about the outage at 12:00. As far as we can tell all international links are now stable.

Thu 10th Nov 2016 12:20 It appear that worst part of the outage is now over although international connectivity appears very intermittent. Bofinet had no information on what was happening and BTCL's NOC cannot be contacted.

Thu 10th Nov 2016 12:10 We are investigating an apparent loss of internet connectivity.

Tue 8th Nov 2016 16:00 BTCL have notified us of the failure of their ADSL node in Flowertown, Mahalapye. They expect serives to be restored by 18h20.

Sun 30th Oct 2016 17:03 All internet services via BTCL and Bofinet were down fom 16:06 until 16:53.

Tue 25th Oct 2016 08:33 We have just been informed that almost all services have been restored at the fire-damaged Francistown Exchange. ADSL services in Tonota are still down however.

Mon 24th Oct 2016 15:40 The scale of destruction in the fire at the Francistown MSU is hopefully less than we were originally told. It is hoped that by 17h00 power will have been restored to the exchange at which time the engineers can try to assess what other equipment has been damaged.
Orange reports that the problems they were experiencing earlier (with respect to areas apart from the North-East of Botswana) have largely been resolved, although some customers are still affected.

Mon 24th Oct 2016 10:05 The main telephone exchange in Francistown (Main Switching Unit (MSU) F'Town) has been destroyed by fire. Currently BTCL voice lines as well as Bofinet & BTCL data services in the North East of Botswana are down. In particular the following services are affected:
ADSL to Tati, Marang, Tonota, Letlhakane, Orapa, Palapye, Serowe 1 &2, Sowa
DATA: Francistown, Phikwe, Nata, Kasane, Tati, Serule, Masunga, Sowa, Kasane, Ghanzi, Tutume, Nata, Phikwe.
We believe that most, if not all, Bank ATM machines in the listed areas are currently affected.
To make matters worse there is a problem with the Orange cellular networks service. Most Orange customers can only make "on-net" i.e. Orange to Orange cellular calls.
We currently have no forecast from any of the service providers as to when services will be restored.
We will update this site as we receive more information.

Fri 21st Oct 2016 10:30 We have been notified by BTCL that their Mookane ADSL node is down after being struck by lightning. They expect it to be up by 16h00.

Tue 18th Oct 2016 08:58 BTCL has notified us of service outages affecting ADSL access and possibly other data services in the following areas:
Bobonong, Flowertown, Shoshong, Mmadinare and Gumare.
They also notified us today of an outage in Kang that occured yesterday but they have not yet flagged as resolved.

Fri 14th Oct 2016 16:50 This morning BTCL advised us of problems with ADSL and Wireless-ADSL (WDSL) probems in unspecified locations. We have not observed, or receieved reports of, problems with our customers and haven't received any clarifications from BTCL. We presume that whatever problem exists only affects other ISPs. Any customers experiencing difficulties with their ADSL connections are encouraged to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Thu 13th Oct 2016 11:30 WE have been advised by BTCL of a fault which is affecting data services to Shakaweand points North. Their expected time to fix is 16h08.

Wed 5th Oct 2016 15:40 BTCL's ADSL node at RLU9 in Phakalane has failed. They hope to restore services by 17:30 today.

Wed 21st Sep 2016 17:05 BTCL have notified us of emergency planned works that will affect all ADSL traffic from Kasane from 23h00 tonight until 01h00 tomorrow. Any customers whose ADSL lines remain down after the stipulated time are encouraged to call our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Tue 20th Sep 2016 14:45 We understand from BTCL that they are having problems with their ADSL network in the Block-3/Broadhurst area. Affected customers may call our Service Desk on 365-6400 and we will notify them when services are restored.

Fri 16th Sep 2016 16:30 There is now no estimated time to fix for the fibre cut between Brits and Rustenburg as the contractor has encountered difficulties with the conduits.

Fri 16th Sep 2016 09:15 BTCL have informed us of a cable cut in RSA affecting traffic to the South African Internet Exchange. Traffic to SAIX will be routed over other links but there may be congestion on traffic to RSA and other destinations. The expected time to fix is 13h00 today.

Mon 5th Sep 14:23 BTCL have notified us of a the failure of a fibre link between Francistown and Palapye. ADSL services to their exchanges served by Francistown airport and abattoir as well as Palapye RLU2, Orapa and Tonota are affected.

Fri 26th Aug 14:54 BTCL had promised their customers a fix by close of business today but as far as we can see the problem has already been resolved for some customers. Any BTCL customers still experiencing difficulty reaching us are encouraged to contact our Service Desk on 365-6400 so that we can chase up BTCL on their behalf. Please find your public IP address before you call us (you can, for example, Google "what is my ip").

Fri 26th Aug 14:26 It appears that since approx 08h00 this morning a number of BTCL customers who have accounts with us have been unable to reach us via BTCL's network. No other providers are have difficultties as far as we can see. We have notified BTCL.

Wed 17th Aug 09:14 We note that since 19h15 yesterday some customers have been having trouble connecting to our servers, retrieving email etc via BBI connectivity. BBI have acknowledged that they have a problem and are working on it.

Mon 15th Aug 11:01 BTCL have advised us of planned works which will mean an outage on the ADSL network affecting all ADSL customers in Tonota starting at 22h00 on Thu 18/08/2016. Although we hope that they will Take No Time we expect services to be restored by 02h00 the following day.

Fri 29th Jul 2016 12:01 There have been several failures of BTCL infrastructure this morning resulting in failures of BTCL IP addresses to reach the internet or other local resources. BTCL acknowleges the problem but, as yet, has no explanation nor time to fix. The outages so far were:
From 10:21 to 11:07
From 11:12 to 11:39

Thu 28th Jul 2016 13:05 There was a network outage that lasted from from 11:43 to 11:53 today. Internet access was interrupted and access to BTCL reources and Bofinet resources was affected. We are still trying to get confirmation from each of our upstream providers as to what was the cause of the outage.

Thu 21st Jul 2016 15:35 We were investigating an internet connectivity problem affecting some users. It appears that there was a problem with a BTCL core router that caused an outage from 13:25 until 14:15. It is not clear if the problem has been completely resolved.

Wed 20th Jul 2016 22:00 Due to a routing problem in RSA much traffic destined for RSA sites is being forced to travel via longer international links. Access to South African-hosted websites will therefore be subject to congestion and latency issues.

Fri 15th Jul 2016 11:17 Our connectivity through Bofinet was restored a shortwhile ago and we now believe the traffic is stable. Any customers still experiencing problems should please contact our service desk on 365-6400. We apologize for the interruption to service.

Fri 15th Jul 2016 09:06 Our connectivity via Bofinet is still down. It is believed that the timing of the outage only coincidentally occurred at the same time as the Procura planned works. We are workingwith Bofinet to get access restored.

Fri 15th Jul 2016 07:48 Our internet connectivity via Bofinet is down. We have escalated the problem with our provider. Other internet connectivity is working normally.

Fri 15th Jul 2016 07:30 We are investigating a problem preventing some of our customers from acessing the internet following the work carried out on the Procera unit mentioned below.

Thu 14th Jul 2016 07:25 BTCL has warned of a planned outage while a Procera bandwidth management device is reconnected at their MSU-1 exchange. Internet access will down from 22h00 until 22h30 tonight 14/07/16.

Tue 12th Jul 2016 15:30 The dot-BW registry issue that we noticed yesterday seems to have been resolved. The unrelated issue with OpenDNS, as far as we can tell, has not reoccurred.

Tue 12th Jul 2016 08:54 While the particular problem with the BW registry that we observed yesterday has still not been addressed it appears that some reports of problems resolving BW domains relate to an issue with the OpenDNS system which may have now been resolved.

Tue 12th Jul 2016 07:43 Last night we noticed a problem with the dot-BW Registry responsible for administering the DNS for the BW domain. We advised the Registry of the issue. The problem related to resolving records for a single .co.bw domain. We have now had reports of other DNS issue and request any internet users having trouble resolving BW domain names to please contact our service desk on 365-6400.

Mon 4th Jul 2016 11:06 A problem that was preventing users from access our webmail server has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Wed 22nd Jun 2016 07:28 Once again ns4.btc.bw is unresponsive (this time since 19:40 yesterday) leaving the gov.bw domain with no reliable name servers. This will result in mail delays both sending to and receiving from addresses at gov.bw as well as potential difficulties accessing other gov.bw services.

Wed 15th Jun 2016 07:16 We note that the name server ns4.btc.bw which has been the most reliable name server responsible for the gov.bw domain has been unresponsive to DNS queries since 08:55 yesterday. Fortunately the other 2 gov.bw DNS servers ns1.gov.bw and ns2.gov.bw have been much more responsive than usual however there are now many times when there are no DNS servers responding for the gov.bw domain. Currently, however, we have no mail queues for the gov.bw domain.

Mon 30th May 2016 17:05 Both BTCL and Bofinet have issued notices blaming last Friday's 90 minute internet outage on an equipment failure that disrupted all traffic to the MSU1 exchange (Megaleng).

Fri 27th May 2016 13:36 It appears that all of Bofinet's services have now been restored. It seems that they first experienced problems at 11:47 but we are yet to receive an explanation as to what went wrong.

Fri 27th May 2016 13:15 A Bofinet international bandwidth outage has just been resolved. It appears that some BTCL services may also have been impacted. We note that even now some Bofinet hosted services are still down.

Fri 27th May 2016 07:20 Clarification on the previous item:
We have observed that other ISPs worldwide are having problems resolving names on the gov.bw domain

Thu 26th May 2016 12:17 We have observed that the problem resolving names on the gov.bw domain extends to other ISPs worldwide. For the technically-minded we have established that two of their name servers, ns1.gov.bw and ns2.gov.bw (168.167.134.72 and 168.167.134.73) drop almost all UDP requests although they reliably answer queries delivered over TCP. Since the start of this year both of those servers have dropped 96% of UDP queries. We have notified gov.bw who report that there is a known problem with their firewall.

Thu 26th May 2016 07:35 Once again we have large queues of mail for the gov.bw domain owing to the unreachability of their name servers.

Wed 18th May 2016 12:09 BTCL have advised us of a network failure in Dumela in Francistown that will be affecting data services including ADSL in that area. Their expected tim to fix is 16h10 today.

Fri 13th May 2016 17:36 Our ADSL services have been restored. Contractors working in the Botswana Internet Exchange had disconnected a piece of our infrastructure. We apologise for the inconvenience.

Fri 13th May 2016 17:15 Customers are experiencing intermittent problems connecting to us via ADSL. We are investigating with BTCL.

Wed 11th May 2016 08:35 BTCL tell us they have just resolved their problem with ADSL in Phakalane.

Tue 10th May 2016 15:41 We have just been notified by BTCL of a failure at their RLU-9 exchange which is affecting ADSL access in Phakalane. Their notional time to fix is 16:30.

Mon 9th May 2016 13:30 BTCL have informed us that the problem in Mochudi has been resolved.

Mon 9th May 2016 12:16 BTCL have notified us of a failure of their services in Mochudi affecting voice and ASDL services. They hope to restore these services by 14h00 today.

Wed 4th May 2016 09:03 We noticed a large number of ADSL customers in Phakalane had their ADSL service interrupted at 08:49. We presume that this was either BTCL or BPC related. Most of the affected users appear to have re-connected within 11 minutes.

Thu 28th Apr 2016 18:00 We lost most of our BTCL data services at 17:48. Services seem to have been restored now but we are trying to contact our upstream providers to understand the cause of the outage.

Fri 22nd Apr 2016 09:39 BTCL has advised of problems with their data services in Shakawe. We expect that data services, including ADSL, in the region of Shakawe and points North will be affected.

Thu 21st Apr 2016 10:38 We have been advised that the repairs to the EASSY cable are ongoing and the link will now remain down until 26th April. Other links will share the load but may experience congestion resulting in slow internet access.

Wed 20th Apr 2016 16:05 A problem that was preventing certain of our ADSL customers sending mail via one of our mail servers has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thu 14th Apr 2016 14:43 BTCL have notified us of a equipment failure in their Exchange in Dumela, Francistown which will affect data connections including ADSL there.

Thu 7th Apr 2016 18:26 Bofinet has warned of planned works that will affect all links terminating at RLU13 (Gaborone Fairgrounds) between 22h00 on Sat 9th Apr 2016 and Sun 10th Apr 05h00.

Thu 7th Apr 2016 14:28 We had earlier reported that one of BW Nameservers, pch.nic.net.bw was unreachable. The cause of this was a routing problem with one of our upstream providers. That issue has now been resolved and it appears that all the BW servers are responding to DNS requests.

Thu 7th Apr 2016 07:50 We can confirm that the BTCL RLU 6-3 exchange is in Block 9 close to the turn to Gaborone Technical College between Game City and Rainbow School.

Wed 6th Apr 2016 17:11 BTCL has warned of planned maintenance which will affect ADSL services for 30 mins starting at midnight on Thurs 7th Apri. The affected customers are those serviced by their RLU 6-3 exchange. We believe this exchange is in G'West but we are trying to ascertain the precise location.

Wed 6th Apr 2016 17:08 ADSL services in Block 5 (in particular Cabinets 91,92 + 93) are being adversely affected due to cable faults. BTCL hope to have services restored by 21h45.

Wed 6th Apr 2016 08:58 A number of Botswana domains became unreachable on April 1st as their registrations with the dot-BW registry had expired. For more information see our Botswana DNS page.

Tue 5th Apr 2016 15:58 Bofinet has warned of planned works to be carried out to repair damage to the EASSY submarine cable. The repairs will be carried out between midnight on Sun 10th Apr and Fri 15th Apr. During that time the EASSY traffic will be completely cut while other links such as WACS and the links into RSA (SAIX and NAP Africa) will experience congestion leading to slower internet traffic.

Wed 30th Mar 2016 16:03 BTCL have informed us of problem at two of their sites. Near to the Bull & Bush in Gaborone there is a cable cut. At G'West their Cabinet 88 has been vandalised. We are not clear which customers may be affected but any customers experiencing outages should please contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Sun 27th Mar 2016 19:08 We note that one of the authoritative DNS name servers for the Botswana domain (.bw) pch.nic.net.bw, has been unreachable since 11:18 on Thu 24/03/16. This will have little impact on BW DNS resolution as the other 4 servers seem to be working normally however it is regrettable that important infrastructure like this should remain offline for an extended period.

Tue 22nd Mar 2016 13:55 BTCL has notifies us intermittent failures to their data services in the North West of Botswana. ADSL and other data services in Gumare and Shakawe are subject to interruption.

Tue 15th Mar 2016 07:05 We note that BTCL suffered a major outage between midnight and 01h00 that left their international links unreachable and some local links were also down. Services via Bofinet were unaffeced.

Thu 10th Mar 2016 14:39 We have been notified of a power failure affecting BTCL services including ADSL services to Shakawe. The projected time of restoration of services is 16h40.

Tue 8th Mar 2016 07:15 We note that internet access via Bofinet was down from 00h15 until 02h20. Connectivity now appears to be normal but we have had no notifications from Bofinet. BTCL connectivity appears to have been unaffected.

Mon 7th Mar 2016 14:42 A problem which was preventing some of our customers from sending mail has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thu 3rd Mar 2016 17:54 We just observed a large number of our ADSL customers being disconnected then immediately reconnecting. All the customers were in Phakalane. We suspect it was either a BTCL issue or a BPC power dip.

Tue 23rd Feb 2016 14:38 BTCL have advised us of some sort of problem with their ADSL network which is preventing some users from accessing the internet. We have no further information and request any ADSL customers experiencing difficulties to please contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Tue 23rd Feb 2016 07:30 Apart from a brief interrruption at 22h55 yesterday we see that BTCL's international links have been stable. At 22h20 and 23h56 there were brief interruptions to BTCL ADSL services for some customers.
Customers who have configured their browsers to use the temporary proxy server mentioned below are requested to update their browser proxy settings to use the name proxy2.info.bw with the same port number 8080. This proxy wil be permanently available and the name will always resolve to the most appropriate IP address.

Mon 22nd Feb 2016 22:25 At approx 21:55 BTCL restored their international links. All services appeaar to be back to normal.

Mon 22nd Feb 2016 20:09 We have placed brief instructions here for customers who wish to use the temporary proxy server that we have availed at 197.234.208.2:8080

Mon 22nd Feb 2016 19:31 For customers who are still unable to browse the internet we have setup a temporary proxy server at 197.234.208.2 port 8080.

Mon 22nd Feb 2016 18:59 Please ignore the advice below to add an additonal DNS server to network configurations. Making the change will do no harm but our existing servers are handling all DNS traffic transparently.

Mon 22nd Feb 2016 18:03 We note that many of our ADSL customers have managed to re-connect since 17:50. Unfortunately our BTCL international links remain down.
Depending on various factors some of our technically-minded ADSL customers may be able to re-enable internet access by changing their DNS settings to include a DNS server at 197.234.208.2
Failing that please keep checking this page for any further announcements.

Mon 22nd Feb 2016 17:03 Our ADSL customers are still offline however they are not missing out on much as the international internet links are unusable.

Mon 22nd Feb 2016 16:41 We have again lost contact with all of our ADSL customers. We are currently unable to contact BTCL.

Mon 22nd Feb 2016 15:46 We lost contact with all of our ADSL customers. We presume that BTCL are continuing to experience problems at their MSU-1 exchange. At the time of writing we see that customers are now re-connecting.

Mon 22nd Feb 2016 14:54 We can confirm that just before 14h00 BTCL experienced a major power outage at their MSU-1 exchange. It is unclear how bandwidth is currently being managed but we trust that when they have fixed their problems decent connectivity will be restored.

Mon 22nd Feb 2016 14:45 We have had no joy getting any information from our upstream service providers although there is clearly congestion and heavy packet loss while trying to reach many international sites. We also note that other ISPs are also experiencing problems.

Mon 22nd Feb 2016 14:25 It is clear that there is a problem with international internet connectivity and we strongly suspect that Bofinet has lost one of their international links although they claim there is no problem. We will update this site when we have furhter information.

Wed 17th Feb 2016 10:28 We understand that the WACS link is now fully operational and traffic is flowing normally over all international links.

Tue 16th Feb 2016 14:45 We have been notified that the WACS link is still not functioning properly. Our upstream providers in UK are investigating.

Tue 16th Feb 2016 10:54 Bofinet has informed us that the WACS link is still down with traffic being routed over redundant links. This means that there is congestion on those other links resulting in slowness in accessing some sites. Time-critical services such as VOIP may also suffer due to increased latency.

Mon 15th Feb 2016 16:30 BTCL report that the problems with their Selebi Phikwe node has been resolved.

Mon 15th Feb 2016 14:50 Apparently the WACS connectivity has been restored and following routing updates traffic should be normalised by 17h00.

Mon 15th Feb 2016 11:30 We understand from Bofinet that the West African Cable System (WACS) internet connectivity via Namibia is down. Internet access will be slow as traffic will be routed to other links.

Tue 9th Feb 2016 18:13 It appears that Bofinet's international links are now working properly.

Tue 9th Feb 2016 17:09 We can confirm that the worst affected sites appear to be in USA while Europe and RSA are still reachable. We will update this site once we are sure that connectivity has been restored.

Tue 9th Feb 2016 16:58 We have realised that since approx 16h00 many sites are unreachable via Bofinet's international links. We have notified Bofinet who now confirm that there is a problem but as yet have no further information.

Tue 2nd Feb 2016 17:00 Adsl traffic is flowing normally now. We apologise for the inconvenience.

Tue 2nd Feb 2016 16:40 WE are investigating an instability in the ADSL network causing user's connection to drop.

Fri 29th Jan 2016 11:24 BTCL have advised us of planned works that will cause interrupions to ADSL services (and possibly some fibre connectivity) at the times and locations listed below:
  Mon 08/02/16 22h00 - 09/02/16 03h00 5hrs
      MSU1 (Megaleng), MSU2 (Gabs phase 2), RLU5 (Mogoditshane)
  Tue 09/02/16 22h00 - 10/02/16 03h00 5 hrs
     RLU9-1 & RLU9-2 (Phakalane), Lobatse
  Wed 10/02/16 22h00 - 11/02/16 03h00 5hrs
     RLU1 (Broadhurst by Total), RLU13 (Showgrounds), RLU11 (Tlokweng)
  Thu 11/02/16 22h00 - 12/02/16 03h00 5 hrs
      Jwaneng, Palapye, Phikwe
Any customers in those areas who experience outages beyond the stated times are encouraged to notify our Service Desk on 365-6400

Mon 25th Jan 2016 11:02 We have been advised by BTCL that the failure, restoration, failure and subsequent restoration of ADSL services in Tsabong are due to a BPC failure together with refueling issues for the backup generator. BPC power is currently down.

19th Jan 2016 08:15 BTCL has advised us of a failure at their RLU6 exchangewhich is affecting ADSL access to customers in Block 9, Block 5 and Phase4 in Gaborone. It is not clear when service will be resumed. Affected customers may call our Service Desk on 365-6400 if they would like to be notifiedonce service is restored.

Mon 18th Jan 2016 18:15 Our switchboard number 391-8444 is currently out of order. We request our customers to call us on 365-6400. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Fri 15th Jan 2016 16:24 It is probable that the earlier issue with internet access was related to a problem at BoFiNet however we have no meaningful feedback from BTCL or BoFiNet.

Fri 15th Jan 2016 15:40 The problem which caused difficulties accessing the DNS root servers appears to have been resolved but we have no information as to what caused the problem.

Fri 15th Jan 2016 15:18 We haven escalated the internet access issue to our upstream providers BTCL & BoFiNet but so far with no success. It appears that the problem may be related to an inability to access the DNS root servers.

Fri 15th Jan 2016 14:59 We are having difficulty accessing the internet we are invetigating the cause of the problem.

Thu 3rd Dec 2015 08:30 A problem that was preventing mail delivery to a few of our corporate customers has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Tue 24th Nov 2015 17:33 BTC have notifies us of a service failure at their MSU1 Exchnage (Megaleng) that is affecting ADSL customers in the central part of Gaborone.

Mon 23rd Nov 2015 10:45 We have had several notices from BTCL about network failures and restorations. In keeping with our policy of trying to limit ourselves to reporting on the current state of network connectivity we make the sole announcement of a service outage affecting DATA and ADSL customers in the vicinity of Francistown airport. The cause is apparatrently a BPC power failure.

Thu 19th Nov 2015 17:14 We understand from BTCL that the cause of the recent outage was the failure of one of their core routers. Our expectation is that the device has been replaced and that the problem should not recur.

Thu 19th Nov 2015 16:35 Our BTCL link appears to have been restored. We have no offiocal confirmation from BTCL and we are still testing connectivity.

Thu 19th Nov 2015 15:24 BTCL have confirmed that our link is down and they are trying to resolve the problem. Customers should feel free to call our servivce desk on 365-6400 if they would like to be notified once service is restored.

Thu 19th Nov 2015 15:00 Our internet access through BTCL has just gone down. We are trying to contact BTCL.

Wed 18th Nov 2015 12:31 We have been advised by BTC of planned works that will cause outages for Francistown ADSL & Data users at the following time:
  Fri 20/11/15 23h30 - Sat 21/11/15 04h30 5 hrs
      F/Town MSU, RLU1 (Tec), RLU2 (Marang)
Any customers still affected after the stated time should please call our Service Desk on 365-6400

Wed 11th Nov 2015 16:09 BTCL have informed us of planned works that will affect ADSL customers as listed below:
   Tue 17/11/15 22h00 to Wed 18/11/15 02h00 4 hrs RLU12 Tsholofelo in Gaborone
Any customers still without service after the stated times should please contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.
We draw your attention to the notices below some of which are still in force.

Tues 3rd Nov 2015 16:04 BTCL have also notified us of other planned works which will have a greater impact on ADSL services according to this schedule:
  Tue 10/11/15 22h00 - 11/11/15 01h00 3 hrs Gabs MSU-1 (Megaleng) MSU-2 (G'West), RLU5 (Mogoditshane)
  Thu 12/11/15 22h00 - 13/11/15 02h00 4 hrs Jwaneng, Hukuntsi, Tsabong
  Sat 14/11/15 22h00 - 15/11/15 02h00 4 hrs Tsabong
  Mon 16/11/15 22h00 - 17/11/15 02h00 4hrs Hukuntsi
Customers without service after the scheduled times should please contact our Service Desk on 365-6400

Tues 3rd Nov 2015 14:33 BTCL have notified us of planned works to be carried out at the places and times below.
  06/11/15 21h00 - 07/11/15 05h00
     Letlhakane, Palapye RLU1, Palapye RLU2, Serowe RLU1, Serowe RLU2, Phikwe-3,
     Orapa, Gabs RLU7-2, RLU6-3 & RLU9-2 (Block8, Block9 & Phakalane), Ramotswa.
  07/11/15 21h00 - 08/11/15 05h00
     Tonota, Maun, Sua town, Marang, Monarch, Gabs RLU6-2 & RLU-7 (Block8 & Block9),      Tlokweng, Phakalane RLU9, Lobatse & Jwaneng.
  08/11/15 21h00 - 09/11/15 05h00
      MSU1-1 (Megaleng), MSU2-1 (G'West), Gabs RLU2, RLU4, RLU6-1 & RLU14 (Ext 27, Village,
      Block9 & GIFP), Molepolole, RLU5, RLU1& RLU13
The above ADSL works should only cause outages which last for 5 minutes per customer. Any customers still without service after the stipulated times should please contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Wed 28th Oct 2015 14:44 The DIT BINX link was restored on Wed 21st Oct and sometime later mail to addresses at gov.bw started to flow. We are again having difficulty sending mail to gov.bw and, once again, advise customers to correspond with gov.bw addressees using non-gov.bw email addresses.
It appears that issues with the DNS for gov.bw have exacerbated their connectivity issues. There is some more information on our Botswana DNS page.
Currently, even when we can resolve the MX records for gov.bw, their mail servers are mostly unreachable.

Tue 20th Oct 2015 16:30 The gov.bw network is still essentially unreachable from the outside. Mail is queuing up on our servers and eventually being returned to sender. You may wish to negotiate some other means of communication with your gov.bw correspondents.

Mon 12th Oct 2015 16:21 BTCL has informed us of the planned migration of ADSL services to new equipment for customers according to the schedule below:
     Wed 14/10/15 09h00 to midnight Bokaa
     Fri 16/10/15 09h00 to midnight Oodi
     Sat 17/10/15 09h00 to midnight Moshupa
     Mon 19/10/15 09h00 to midnight Gabane
In each case any individual user should only experience an outage of about 5 minutes.
Any customers still experiencing problems after the scheduled service restoration time should please contact our service desk on 365-6400

Thu 8th Oct 2015 10:35 BTCL have fixed their ns4.btc.bw nameserver so at least DNS lookups for gov.bw can work even though their network is unreachable.

Wed 7th Oct 2015 14:44 Bofinet have informed us that the WACS link has been restored.

Wed 7th Oct 2015 08:45 The WACS failure (which we now understand to have occurred at 06:21) appears to be related to Botswana infrastructure. We are expecting an update some time after 10h30.

Wed 7th Oct 2015 07:20 We understand that BoFinet lost their internet connectivity via the West African Cable System (WACS) at about 05h00. Traffic has been switched to the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSY) but there may be congestion in traffic resulting in slow internet access.

Tue 6th Oct 2015 17:58 We have been experiencing difficulty accessing the Government Data Network. The problem appears to reside at the GDN and we are experiencing delays in delivering mail to addresses at gov.bw as a result. As far as we can tell congestion at the GDN combined with the failure of the ns4.btc.bw name server are causing DNS lookups for the gov.bw domain to fail. We have more information on our Botswana DNS page.

Mon 5th Oct 2015 15:34 BTCL have notified us of an equipment failure that happened on Sat 3rd Oct and affected ADSL customers served by their RLU14 exchange in the Kgale Mews area. It appears that some customers are still waiting to be configured on the replacement equipment. Any customers still without ADSL access shold please contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Mon Sep 14th 2015 11:50 We have been advised by BTCL of a fibre break in RSA which is impacting some South Afrian traffic routed via the South African Internet Exchange. Traffic should be routed over alternate links but there may be congestion. A repair is expected by 13h00.

Tue Sep 1st 2015 12:32 BTCL have informed us of planned works that are expected to affect the Riverwalk area for a period of 10 mins from 22h00 on Fri 4th Sep 2015.

Thu Aug 13th 2015 08:02 number of customers are complaining of slow internet access via ADSL. We are investigating but would like any affected customers to contact our service desk on 365-6400.

Mon Aug 10th 2015 16:50 We have beem informed of a fibre cut in RSA. Traffic to RSA is currently being routed via other links resulting in possible delays and congestion.

Wed Aug 5th 2015 09:22 Some of our customers are experiencing very slow internet access via ADSL. The problem appears to be related to one of our upstream providers. Affected customers should please call our Service Desk on 365-6400 so that we can effect a work-around for them.

Fri Jul 24th 2015 07:31 A problem which left some of our servers unreachable overnight has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Fri Jun 26th 2015 17:25 Internet connectivity through BTCL is back up again but we still have no explanation from them as to what was the cause.

Fri Jun 26th 2015 17:14 Internet connectivity through BTCL has gone down again.

Fri Jun 26th 2015 15:38 Internet connectivity through BTCL has been restored but as yet we have no explanation for the interruption.

Fri Jun 26th 2015 15:25 We have lost internet connectivity through BTCL. We are asking BTCL to investigate.

Fri Jun 26th 2015 15:05 If there was a problem earlier with the BTCL ADSL network then it has been resolved. Currently it seems to be working as usual.

Fri Jun 26th 2015 12:15 A number of customers cannot reconnect after turning off their ADSL modems. It could be that we are just observing an ADSL outage in part of the BTCL network, however we caution customers not to turn off their ADSL modems at the present time. We are trying to contact BTCL.

Mon Jun 22nd 2015 14:34 We can confirm that the recent ADSL interruption lasted from 13:56 to 14:06. It also appears that it wasn't only ADSL services that were affected. As yet we have no explanation from BTCL as to what was the cause of the outage.

Mon Jun 22nd 2015 14:08 a few minutes ago we noticed a problem with the entire BTCL ADSL network. The issue resolved itself after just a few minutes - at 14:04 most users were back online. We are trying to find out from BTCL what happened. In a few cases customers who still have no internet access may need to switch off their ADSL modems, wait for, say, a minute and then turn them on again.

Fri Jun 19th 2015 09:10 Our servers and network infrastructure ran on backup power during the BPC load shedding yeserday afternoon and evening. There was no interruption to the services we provide however we are aware that BTCL experienced power outages that impacted ADSL customers in the following areas:
North East Region, Southern Region, South East Region, Central Region, North West Region, Kweneng Region and Kgalagadi Region.
The widespread nature of the infrastructure of the BTCL ADSL network make it difficult for them to provide backup power during extended load shedding. We therefore anticipate further interruptions to their services when BPC power outages last for several hours.

Thu Jun 18th 2015 09:51 We have again been alerted of planned works at the BTCL Kazungula exchange. As far as we can tell ADSL traffic at Kazungula and Kasane will be affected as well as international traffic to Zambia. The work is scheduled to last from midnight tonight until 02h00 Fri 19/06/15.
Customers experiencing outages after the scheduled period are encouraged to contact our Service Desk on 391-8444

Wed Jun 10th 2015 09:40 BTCL have clarified that the works mentioned below will be carried out between 08h00 and 16h30 on each of Sat 13/06/15 and Sun 14/06/15.

Wed Jun 10th 2015 09:18 BTCL have advised of of planned works on their Kazungula exchange that should result in a few minutes down time for ADSL customers connected to that exchange. The work is scheduled to be completed between 08h00 on Sat 13/06/15 and 16h30 on Sun 14/06/15. Any customers experiencing extended loss of service whould please contact our Service Desk on 391-8444.

Thu Jun 4th 2015 16:39 At about 14:15 today our ADSL sevices were briefly interrupted. Most of our customers reconnected a few minutes later. In a few cases, however, we have not observed any reconnection attempts. We advise any customers whose ADSL is currently down to please power off their ADSL modem, wait for a short while (say 30 seconds) and then switch it back on again. Any customers whose ADSL remains down are requested to contact our service desk on 391-8444. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Mon Jun 1st 2015 14:28 BTCL has informed us of planned works that will lead to ADSL outages as per the list below:
     Fri 05/06/15 22h00 to Sat 06/06/15 01h00 Sebina
     Sat 06/06/15 22h00 to Sun 07/06/15 01h00 Dukwi
     Sat 13/06/15 08h00 to Sun 14/06/15 16h30 Kazungula
Customers still experiencing problems after the scheduled service restoration time should please contact our service desk on 391-8444

Mon May 25th 2015 18:05 We note that there are severe delays sending mail to addresses at gov.bw due to DNS problems possibly caused by ongoing network congestion at the Department of IT.

Tue May 19th 2015 12:07 We have resolved a problem that was preventing some of our customers from sending outbound mail. We aplogize for the inconvenience.

Mon May 18th 2015 12:05 We have been struggling with out outgoing ISDN lines but we have now heard from BTCL that thay are experiencing some major problems that could well be affecting our lines. We urge customers, suppliers et al to please contact us by email eg support@info.bw.

Fri May 15th 2015 16:43 We haven't been able to get any information from BTCL about the filtering rules that they imposed on May 12th. It is clear, however, that they started blocking outbound smtp port 25 traffic originating with their users from leaving their network. This broke outgoing mail for many of our customers who purchase services from both Botsnet and ourselves.
In order for users to send mail via our servers while connecting through Botsnet we advise them to configure their outgoing mail settings to use port 587 instead of port 25. Please contact our Service Desk on 391-8444 if you need assistance in changing this setting.

Wed May 13th 2015 12:12 It appears that BTCL haven't resolved their issues with their IP switch at the Airport, rather they have re-routed traffic. Any previously affected customers should be aware that there may be further disruption later if an BTCL restores the original routing.

Wed May 13th 2015 12:11 We use this website to report on the current state of our systems and internet connectivity. We do not normally report on problems that have already been resolved. For the record, however, we are reporting on a notification that we received a short while ago explaining that BTCL experienced country-wide outages between 16h00 and 22h00 yesterdy due to BPC load-shedding. The services they listed as affected were only ADSL services.

Wed May 13th 2015 11:45 BTCL seem to have restored connectivity to their IP switch at the airport.

Wed May 13th 2015 11:28 BTCL lost connectivity to their IP switch at SSK Airport at 11:00. They are investigating the cause. Customers served by that switch will have no Metro or Internet connectivity.

Tue May 12th 2015 16:40 We have had numerous calls from customers connecting from Botsnet bandwidth who are unable to connect to our outgoing SMTP servers. They are able to connect to our web servers and our POP/IMAP servers to retrieve mail so we conclude that Botsnet have a broken anti-outgoing-spam filter on port 25.
We are attempting to contact Botsnet to inform them of this but affected users on Botsnet bandwidth are also encouraged to report the problem also to Botsnet.

Mon May 11th 2015 08:35 We, and other ISPs have been experiencing difficuties sending mail to addresses at gov.bw for some time. The problem seems to be congestion on the gov.bw link to the Botswana Internet Exchange. This problem has arisen in the past. We can only advise using web-based email services such as GMail until gov.bw has sorted out their issues.

Sun May 3rd 2015 20:15 Power has now been restored in G'West.

Sun May 3rd 2015 18:30 We have been running on backup power since 17:15 due to load shedding. We do not anticipate any interruption to services but third-party suppliers may experience power failures.

Thu Apr 23rd 2015 18:06 BTCL have warned of planned maintenance that may affect data connections via their MSU-1 exchange (Megaleng). Any given service may be down for a maximum of 2hrs any time between 20h00 tonight and 04h00 tomorrow.
They have also warned of a planned 4 hour outage from 22h30 tonight until 03h00 tomorrow affecting ADSL in Tati-Siding.

Thu Apr 23rd 2015 17:55 We are running on backup power due to load-shedding affecting G'West. We do not anticipate any interruption to services but third party suppliers may suffer interruptions which might affect some of our users.

Mon Apr 13th 2015 13:58 BTCL rolled back their changes at approx 11h00 today. DSL internet access should be back to normal. Any customers still experiencing problems should please contact our Service Desk on 365-6400.

Mon Apr 13th 2015 10:07 It appears that BTCL made configuration changes on their network on Friday without informing us resulting in the abysmal performance of their ADSL service. We are trying to get them to reverse the changes.

Mon Apr 13th 2015 09:38 We have numerous reports of slow internet bandwidth and slow access to our servers over ADSL. We are investigating the problem with our ADSL & upstream providers.

Wed Apr 8th 2015 13:54 We have been informed by BTCL of planned works that will affect all data services (inc ADSL) to customers served from their RLU9 (Phakalane) and RLU10 (SSK Airport) exchanges. Their works are scheduled to last from Wed 8th April 20h00 to Thur 9th april 04h00 although any given services should be down for no longer than 2 hours.

Wed Apr 1st 2015 17:45 BTCL have notified us a major extended planned outage which will affect ADSL access throughout Gaborone from 17:00 until 22:00 on Thur 9th April 2015. Rather than list all the affected exchanges it will be simpler to list those which will not be affected. i.e. Village, Mogoditshane, Block 8, SSK Airport, Tlokweng, Tsholofelo and Finance Park. Anywhere else in Gaborone + Phakalane users should expect interruption to services.

Fri Mar 27th 2015 08:53 BTCL have informed us planned works that will affect ADSL + data connectivity in Hukuntsi from 13h00 to 14h00 on Sat 28/03/15.

Thu Mar 26th 2015 17:17 The dire prognosis for the power supply in G/West was greatly exaggerated. Power has now been restored.

Thu Mar 26th 2015 14:52 BPC inform us that power will be restored at 22h00 tonight.

Thu Mar 26th 2015 14:05 We have been running on backup power since 13:40 due to load shedding affecting our part of Gaborone West. We do not anticipate any interruption to services however we cannot speak for third party providers.

Thu 19th Mar 2015 17:30 It appears that some of our incoming telephone lines are dead. Customers are requested to please hang up and re-try or perhaps use more than one phone in order to occupy the unresponsive line(s). Please feel free to contact us on support@info.bw. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thu 19th Mar 2015 16:45 The problem with BTCL's ns1.btc.bw nam server appears to have been resolved sometime after 10:00 his morning.

Wed 18th Mar 2015 08:17 We note that the authoritative BW server ns1.btc.bw is still mostly unavailable. BTCL & BOCRA (who run the BW Registry) have been informed.
We periodically update our note on the Botswana DNS

Tue 17th Mar 2015 15:00 While investigating mail delivery problems we have realised that the server ns1.btc.bw (168.167.168.34) is frequently failing to respond to queries. This server is one of (theoretically 5) DNS servers which hold records for the dot-BW domain. Customers whose mail is being rejected as the "sender's domain could not be resolved" are advised to persist in resending their mails. We are notifying BTCL.
We note, in passing, that 2 of BTCL's other nameservers authoritative for their own domain (ns4.ntc.bw and mogonono.btc.bw) are also unresponsive leaving them with just vpsm.btc.bw (168.167.253.21) able to respond reliably.

Sat 14th Mar 2015 10:02 A number of customers have received emails claiming to be from "Bytes Botswana Webmail" warning them that they will be having trouble sending and receiving mail and they "may lose all your information's " if they don't "Click the Link Below".
These mails were sent from outside of our network and they are spam emails sent with malicious intent. The website linked-to is almost certainly hosting malware. Please do not click on the link - just delete the email.
Spam emails like this are quite common and we would advise our customers not to click on links in emails especially from unknown sources.

Fri 13th Mar 2015 10:09 VBN have resolved their routing issue. Any customers still experiencing difficulties should contact VBN or we can contact them on their behalf.

Fri 13th Mar 2015 09:45 A number of customers have reported that they are unable to connect to our network from VBN IP addresses. VBN have acknowledged the problem and are working to resolve it.

Wed 11th MAr 2015 14:10 We are investigating reports of slow internet access from ADSL customers.

Tue 10th Mar 2015 17:20 We have been informed by BTCL of planned maintenance to be carried out between 00h01 and 01h30 on Wed Mar 11th (i.e. tonight). The work will affect all data customers (including ADSL) from Francistown to the North of the country.

Tue 3rd Mar 2015 18:42 BTCL has notified us of planned work to be carried out between 07h30 on Mon 9th March 2015 and 16h30 on Tues 10th March. ADSL customers in Mochudi will be affected as BTCL upgrades their infrastructure. Customers are encouraged to contact our service desk on 391-8444 if their ADSL service is still down on Tues 10th March.

Tue 3rd Mar 2015 17:25 Mail to our info.bw and global.bw customers has been experiencing delays. The issue has been resolved and we apologize for the inconvenience.

Thu 26th Feb 2015 14:19 We apologize for a problem that prevented our ADSL customers for connecting for the last 25 minutes.

Sun 22nd Feb 2015 14:09 BTCL have informed us of planned works to be carried out from 00h00 until 02h00 on Mon 23rd Jan that will affect ADSL customers in Kazungula and Kasane.

Fri 20th Feb 2015 16:36 We have received various communications from BTCL & Bofinet confirming that their links went down but with no more useful information.
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Fri 20th Feb 2015 16:03 We see that internet connectivity has been restored through both BTCL and Bofinet although speeds are very slow. We are trying to get an update on what has happened.

Fri 20th Feb 2015 15:30 Throughought the day we have observed very poor internet performance through BTCL and Bofinet. A short while ago we saw traffic volumes crash. BTCL informs us that there is now a major problem betwen themselves and Bofinet. At the time of writing we have no further information nor do we have an estimated time to repair.

Thu 19th Feb 2015 18:46 BTCL have notified us of planned work to be carried out at Francistown, Tati Siding, Tonota and Serule between 23h55 today and 03h00 tomorrow. There may be interruptions to leased line and ADSL services in those areas over that period.

Tue 17th Feb 2015 16:10 BTCL have been experiencing major problems throughout the afternoon. Although we haven't been officially notified we are hopeful that their problems have been resolved as we see a leap in BTCL traffic. Any customers still experiencing difficulties are urged to contact our Service Desk on 391-8444.

Tue 17th Feb 2015 11:22 BTCL bandwidth appears to have been restored.

Tue 17th Feb 2015 11:18 It looks like BTCL has again lost some services. Internet access via BTCL is currently down. Bofinet internet access appears to be unaffected.

Mon 14th Feb 2015 11:48 A number of our ADSL customers, when they try to access their email or the internet, are seeing a "Redirect Page" managed by BTCL advising them to "Contact their Service Provider". This is the result of a misconfiguration by BTCL. We advise any affected customers to contact our Service Desk on 391-8444 so that we can request BTCL to restore their access.

Fri 13th Feb 2015 10:40 We notice that some BTCL connectivity is still unstable. In particular customers using Botsnet ADSL may have difficulty connecting to local ISPs.

Fri 13th Feb 2015 09:58 BTCL's services appear to have been restored. We do not yet have no explanation of the cause of the outage.

Fri 13th Feb 2015 09:50 BTCL confirm that there is major problem but, as yet, they have no explanation as to the cause of the loss of services.

Fri 13th Feb 2015 09:35 We lost internet connectivity through BTCL few minutes ago. We note that other providers' local connectivity appears also to be affected. We are trying to find out from BTCL what has happened.

Tue 10th Feb 2015 12:34 It appears that BTCL fixed their routing (or whatever) problems a few minutes ago. Mail is now flowing to customers on BTCL/Botsnet's network. Any customers still experiencing mail problems should please contact our service desk on 391-8444.

Tue 10th Feb 2015 11:35 We have a large number of customers on BTCL's or Botsnet ADSL and leased lines who are unable to receive mail via SMTP. The problem is unique to BTCL/Botsnet bandwidth. We have notified BTCL.

Thu 15th Jan 2015 08:00 BTCL have notified us of a service outage in Maun that will affect ADSL services to Shakawe, Charleshill and Makalagabedi.

Mon 12th Jan 2015 13:40 For the past hour correspondents may have been unable to send mail to some addresses on our info.bw and global.bw domains. The problem has been resolved and we apologize for the inconvenience.

Sat 10th Jan 2015 09:15 A problem that was preventing some of our customers connecting to one of our outgoing mail servers has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thu 11th Dec 2014 18:40 It appears that all of BTCL's services have now been restored. Apparently the cause of the outage was a power problem at their MSU-2 exchange.

Thu 11th Dec 2014 17:23 We have just lost all internet access we suspect a major failure at BTCL. We have no phone lines and can't get a response from BTCL's Network Control Centre.

Tue 9th Dec 2014 17:00 We have observed a great slowdown in internet access. We are trying to contact our upstream providers to discover the cause.

Mon 24th Nov 2014 12:21 For the past hour one of our outbound SMTP servers was unavailable to some of our customers. The problem has been resolved. We thank our customers for bringing this to our attention and we apologize for the inconvenience.

Fri 21st Nov 2014 08:05 A problem that delayed mail transfer to some of our customers has been resolved. WE apologize for the inconvenience.

Thu 13th Nov 2014 14:00 The BoFiNet link was restored at 13:30. Any customers still experiencing difficulty accessing the internet should please call our service desk on 391-8444.

Thu 13th Nov 2014 12:42 Our internet link via BoFiNet has just gone down. We are liaising with them to restore it.

Thu 13th Nov 2014 10:09 It appears that BoFiNet and/or BTC have resolved the problem with internet access. We still, however, have no technical information as to the cause of the outage.

Thu 13th Nov 2014 08:55 Both BTCL and BoFiNet acknowledge the difficulties accessing the internet. They have no technical description of the problem and no estimate of when it will be solved. Customers who would like to be notified when service is restored should contact our service desk on 391-8444.

Thu 13th Nov 2014 08:15 There are major problems accessing the internet. We suspect this may be related to the planned work carried out by BoFiNet last night. We observed a complete outage from 02h00 until 04h00 but there are still difficulties accessing international sites especially since 07h00.
We are trying to get information from BTCL & BoFiNet.

Mon 10th Nov 2014 10:43 BTCL have advised us of planned work to be carried out on 14/11/2014 at various times of the evening and affecting various customers. We are awaiting clarification so we can publish a meaningful notice.

Mon 10th Nov 2014 09:30 BoFiNet has notified us of planned network maintenance that will impact all their data services from 22h00 on Wed 12th Nov until 02h00 Thu 13th Nov. Customers should expect that internet access during that period will be affected.

Mon 27th Oct 2014 16:45 We lost BPC power a few minutes ago. At present we do not know if this is load shedding ofa fault as we can't get any response from BPC faults. We are running on backup power be we do not expect any interruption to our services. We cannot, however, promise for 3rd party suppliers who may also be affected.

Fri 17th Oct 2014 14:38 There are problems with BTCL's ADSL network in the Phakalane area. BTCL is aware of the problem.

Tue 14th Oct 2014 07:50 Some of our post office customers have been unable to access one of our mail servers. The problem has been resolved, no mail has been lost and mail is being pushed to the affected domains. We apologize for the delay to mail delivery.

Fri 26th Sep 2014 15:53 In response to queries we are pleased to announce that all of our servers have been patched against the ShellShock vulnerability.

Thu 28th Aug 2014 23:18 We had been informed that the EASSY and WACS links ought to be restored by midnight. We see, however, that there appears to have been some level of internet access since 22:30. We are cautiously optimistic that our customers now have full internet access.

Thu 28th Aug 2014 18:00 The situation with respect to the current internet outage remins unclear. We are told of several fibre cuts in RSA plus one in Katimo Mulilo in Namibia. As yet there is no projected time to repair.
ADSL customers having difficulty connecting to local sites are advised to try using our proxy server (proxy.info.bw:8080).
The link to the South African Internet Exchange (SAIX) is currently working however difficulty resolving DNS entries may prevent most users reaching sites routed over that link. For the technically-minded the public DNS server operated by DNS Advantage at 156.154.70.1 is reachable over the SAIX link and can resolve South African addresses.

Thu 28th Aug 2014 13:53 Customers are advised that although international internet access is down there is access to local ISPs who peer at the Botswana Internet Exchange (BINX). A list of peering members is maintained on our own BINX website

Thu 28th Aug 2014 13:48 We understand that there is a serious fibre cut in Botswana affecting all three international routes to the internet. We supect that time to restore may be several hours. Customers who would like to be notified once services are restored should contact out Service Desk on 391-8444.

Thu 26th Aug 2014 13:09 We lost all internet access through our upstream providers (BoFiNet and BTCL)at 12:30. We are trying to get some feedback from them.

Thu 26th Aug 2014 10:45 We understand that BoFiNet's WACS link went down this morning. Traffic is being routed over alternative links but there may be some congestion resulting in slow speeds.

Sun 24th Aug 2014 12:10 BTCL is having unspecified problems with their internet feed. Internet access is slow and unreliable.

Tue 19th Aug 2014 07:45 We have been informed that Internet access was fully restored last night. Customers still experiencing problems are encouraged to contact our Service Desk on 391-8444.

Mon 18th Aug 2014 16:07 With respect to the current problems with the internet we can offer you the following background:
There was a 4 day outage scheduled on the West African Cable System (WACS) starting Sun 17th Aug. Before that scheduled outage occured there was a separate problem with WACS on Thu 14th Aug. The backup plan intended for the planned event was brought into effect and traffic was re-routed via the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSY). There remained a certain amount of congestion on EASSY which customers had been experiencing up until the weekend. Today, at 13:25 there was a failure on the EASSY link. EASSY was still carrying its own traffic as well as the re-routed WACS traffic leading to an almost complete failure of internet traffic. At 14:27 today the EASSY link was restored however there still seems to be very bad instability on the internet links from BoFiNet. The above is vastly simplified but broadly respresents the current state of knowledge.

Mon 18th Aug 2014 15:10 Our internet feed was restored at 14:27 however it appears that some sites are still not reachable. We are still investigating.

Mon 18th Aug 2014 13:35 Our internet feed via BTCL has just gone down. We are trying to contact them to resolve the issue.

Sat 16th Aug 2014 20:00 The fault with the WACS system has been resolved. Any customers still experiencing slow internet access should please contact our Support Desk on 391-8444.

Thu 14th Aug 2014 15:25 Internet access has been slow since 10:16 this morning due to a failure of routes via the West African Cable System (WACS). Traffic has since been re-routed via the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSY) and increased capacity has been availed in order to reduce congestion.

Wed 6th Aug 2014 10:14 We remind our customers of the notice we published below on Fri 25th Jul 2014 09:17 warning of a major planned outage lasting from Thu 07/08/14 23h00 until Fri 08/08/14 03h00.

Wed 6th Aug 2014 10:10 BTCL have notified us of planned works to be carried out the Tonota/Shashe area. The work will disrupt ADSL services in that area from 00h01 on Tue 12/08/14 until 05h30 the same morning.

Fri 1st Aug 2014 12:07 Apparently BTCL have a systems failure which is affecting ADSL connectivity in Francistown and Maun. Affected customers are welcome to contact our service desk on 301-844 if they woud like to be notified once service has been restored.

Fri 25th Jul 2014 09:17 BTCL have notified us of planned works which will affect all internet traffic carried over their network during the following period:
   Thu 07/08/14 23h00 until Fri 08/08/14 03h00
Any customers with business-critical needs for connectivity over that period are requested to contact our service desk on 391-8444.

Fri 25th Jul 2014 09:17 The problem with BTCL's ADSL management system has not been fully resolved however they have instituted a work-around so that they can make changes and add users.

Fri 11th Jul 2014 16:19 BTC's ADSL Management System remains down. They do not seem hopeful that it will be restored before next week. We remind out customers that we offer backup dialup services to all of our ADSL customers. Although dialup is slow (less than 56kbps download, less than 33.6kbps upload) it may be the lifeline you need to conduct internet banking or to send that urgent e-mail. Please contact our help desk on 391-8444 if you require assistance in configuring a dialup modem (Gabs dialin number 365-7600).

Thu 10th Jul 2014 15:30 For the third day BTCL's ADSL management system remains down. The ADSL-Connect migration process is currently halted, no new connections or changes are possible and a few of our users remain disconnected. The previously reported country-wide problem with ADSL is unconnected to the BTCL ADSL management software problem and has been resolved.

Wed 9th Jul 2014 12:30 BTCL just notified us of a country-wide failure in the ADSL network which was preventing users from accessing the internet. From our perspective our users' internet access appears uninterrupted. We presume that this outage is only affecting users on the traditional ADSL product and perhaps only some other ISP(s). Any ADSL users unable to access the internet are encouraged to call our support desk on 391-8444.

Wed 9th Jul 2014 09:30 BTCL's ADSL management system is still down. Users disconnected yesterday are still disconnected and all new connections and changes are on hold. We have no indication when BTCL's problem will be resolved.

Tue 8th Jul 2014 15:40 We have been notified of a major problem with the software that BTCL uses to manage the ADSL system. Some users scheduled for migration to the ADSL-Connect system have been left (ironically) disconnected. We are unaware of any further impact. Any users experiencing difficulty connecting to ADSL are encouraged to contact our service desk on 391-8444.

Tue 8th Jul 2014 12:08 BTCL have advised us of planned engineering works which will potentially affect all ADSL customers from midnight tonight until 00h30 tomorrow.

Wed 25th Jun 2014 16:33 ADSL-Connect services have been restored. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Wed 25th Jun 2014 16:22 ADSL-Connect access to our network was interrupted a few minutes ago. We are investigating the cause.

Mon 16th Jun 2014 14:15 BTCL have announced the failure of ADSL services in Kasane due to a suspected fibre cut. They hope to restore services by 17h45 today.

Mon 16th Jun 2014 10:14 We are pleased to announce that Google performance, especially YouTube, should be significantly improved since the upgrading this last weekend, of the Google Global Cache hosted at the Botswana Internet Exchange (BINX).

Thu 12th Jun 2014 17:57 We presume that the BPC power outage is load shedding but we cannot get any response from BPC.

Thu 12th Jun 2014 17:41 We are running on backup power due to a power cut affecting our part of G'West. We do not anticipate any interruption to services but we cannot speak for third party providers.

Thu 5th Jun 2014 18:30 Our servers are not vulnerable to the recently-announced OpenSSL vulnerabilities.

Mon 2nd June 2014 15:25 BTCL have announced planned works to be carried from 19h30 on Fri 06/06/14 until 23h00 the same night. The work will "affect" all ADSL and data customers connected to their MSU-2 (G'West) exchange. Although no down-time is expected, customers in G'West may wish to re-schedule or consider contingency planning for any business-critical internet transactions planned for that time.

Fri 30th May 2014 16:55 BTCL have informed us that their internet feed via the WACS (West Africa Cable System) is currently down. They still have connectivity via EASSY (the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System), however that cable, as a consequence of the increased traffic, is congested and traffic is slow.
Their estimated time for restoration of services is 04h00 on Sat 31st May 2014.

Thu 15th May 2014 16:27 BTCL have notified us of planned engineering works scheduled for Sun 18/05/14 from 08h00 until midnight the same day. All ADSL users in Ramotswa will be affected however the outage should only be for 10 mins per customer. Any customers who experience problems after the scheduled time are requested to contact our service desk on 391-8444 so that we can report the matter to BTCL.

Tue 13th May 2014 14:46 BTCL have advised us of planned work which will affect connectivity for all ADSL customers connecting to their Thamaga exchange. The outage is scheduled to last from 19h00 Wed 14th May to 23h00 the same night.

Tue 6th May 2014 18:09 BTCL have notified us of planned works that they say will affect data connectivity in Kazungula. The outage is scheduled to last from 22h00 tonight until 06h00 tomorrow 7/05/2014.

Fri 2nd May 2014 11:30 BTCL have advised us of planned works that will affect all services connected to their RLU9 exchange in Phakalane (we presume this includes ADSL, other data and voice). The outage is scheduled to last from 23h00 to 23h59 tonight.

Wed 23rd Apr 2014 19:56 A problem which prevented some of our customers accessing our network since 19:30 has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thu 17th Apr 2014 10:40 It appears that BTCL recently resolved their ADSL issue in Maun. Any customers still without internet access should please contact our helpdesk on 391-8444.

Thu 17th Apr 2014 09:30 We have numerous reports of ADSL problems in Maun. BTCL confirm that they have a problem with a node in Maun. Affected customers are welcome to contact our service Desk on 391-8444 if they would like to be notified once service has been restored.

Mon 14th Apr 2014 14:37 BTCL internet connectivity appears to be very unstable. We are trying to get some explanation from them.

Tue 8th Apr 2014 16:43 BTCL have informed us of planned works which will interrupt data links to Zambia from midnight on Fri 11th Apr to 02h00 on Sat 12th April.

Wed 2nd Apr 2014 07:50 We are cautiously optimistic that BTCL resolved their problems at MSU-1 last night but we still await confirmation from BTCL.

Tue 1st Apr 2014 11:32 Apparently BTCL have a problem at their MSU-1 Exchange in Gaborone that is preventing many ADSL customers fom browsing. Any affected customers are encouraged to report to our support desk on 391-8444 so that we can ensure that they are eventually reconnected.

Wed 26th Mar 2014 15:43 BTCL have informed us of planned maintenance that will affect ASDL customers in the Molapo Crossing and Westgate Mall areas from 07h00 until 19h00 on Sat 29th Mar 2014.

Fri 21st Mar 2014 11:59 Some of our ADSL customers are unable to access the internet and are seeing a BTCL-generated screen indicating that their ISP is somehow not-compliant and that they should seek an alternative ISP. BTCL have acknowledged that this is erroneous and have promised to re-connect those customers. Any customers so affected are request to contact our Service Desk on 391-8444 so that we can assure that they are re-connected.

Mon 17th Mar 2014 17:17 We have been advised by BTCL of planned maintenance scheduled for 19/03/14 from 23h00 until 23h59 that will affect all ADSL and internet traffic served by their RLU14 Exchange in Game City.

Mon 10th Mar 2014 08:12 BTCL have warned of planned work which will affect all ADSL customers connecting to their main exchange, MSU-1 (Megaleng), in Gaborone. Service will be interrupted from 11h00 on 13/03/2014 until 05h00 on 14/03/2014.

Mon 10th Mar 2014 08:04 Our services have been uninterrupted throughout the recent BPC load shedding. BTCL's ADSL network at times suffered due to local power failures. Cellular data as well as voice services have been intermittent. Any ADSL customers without service are requested to contact our Service Desk on 391-8444 so that we can escalte the problem with BTCL.

Fri 7th Mar 2014 17:35 It seems futile to continue to warn of power outages. We have been running on emergency power for at least 16 of the last 24 hours. Our services have been uninterrupted, however some customers are experiencing difficulties connecting to us due to failures suffered by third party providers. We note in particular that some internet service providers have suffered outages and Botswana Telecoms warns of continuing problems country-wide due to the BPC power problems.

Thu 6th Mar 2014 15:50 Power was restored at 12:25 this afternoon however it has just gone down again. We do not expect any interruption to services while we run on emergency power; however customers connecting to our infrastructure through third-party suppliers are also dependent on those suppliers and they are out of our control.

Thu 6th Mar 2014 09:32 We have been running on backup power since 08:54. We do not anticipate any interruption to our services but third party providers may have their own power issues.

Tue 25th Feb 2014 09:59 We have been informed by BTCL that the ADSL network has been restored to full functionality. Officially the disturbance lasted from 07:35 until 09:17.

Tue 25th Feb 2014 09:18 BTCL has just notified us of country-wide instability in the ADSL network. They have, as yet, no explanation or estimate as to when the problem will be resolved.

Fri 21st Feb 2014 08:10 BTCL were unaware of any problems and connectivity has now been restored. The same thing happened yesterday at 08h00 and was resolved at 08h14 when BTCL reset one of their routers in G'West (MSU2).

Fri 21st Feb 2014 07:50 Connectivity to the inernet via BTCL bandwidth has just gone down. We are contacting BTCL.

Thu 13th Feb 2014 16:35 We have been informed of planned engineering works to be carried out from 23h59 14/02/14 until 02h00 15/02/14 by BTCL and BoFinet. All internet traffic carried by the WACS and EASSY submarine cables will be affected.

Wed 12th Feb 2014 09:01 Throughout the numerous power cuts overnight all of our systems automatically switched over to backup power and our services were uninterrupted. We note, however, that many of our ADSL customers have not reconnected to us. We suspect that there may be problems with BTCL ADSL infrastructure at various locations and we encourage affected customers to contact us so that we can assist BTCL to address the issues.

Tue 11th Feb 2014 14:58 The problem with BTCL's internet access was resolved shortly before 12h00. (For the technically-minded it appears that BTCL accepted an incorrect BGP advertisement on the BINX and started mis-routing their own traffic. Some other ISPs may have also accepted those advertisements further adding to the confusion.)

Tue 11th Feb 2014 10:23 We note that the problem with BTCL's internet links started at about 08h45 today. BTCL acknowledge the problem but are still investigating and have no estimate of a resolution time.

Tue 11th Feb 2014 09:15 We are experiencing major difficulties accessing the internet using BTCL bandwidth . We are trying to contact BTC to get an explanation of the cause of the problem. As far as we can tell the outage affects ADSL as well as BTCL metro services.

Wed 5th Feb 2014 16:18 For the sake of sysadmins investigating mail delivery problem we offer the following clarification: as far as we can tell BTCL fixed their DNS server sometime after 12h54 this afternoon.

Wed 5th Feb 2014 15:04 BTCL fixed their DNS server late this morning. We see from our logs that some customers running "post office" accounts on their own mail servers were refusing to accept mail if they could not lookup the DNS for the sending domain. This only affected post office customers using BTC's DNS (usually those on the old ADSL system). In general this would just cause a temporary delay to mail receipt. In some cases, where sysadmins had hard-coded DNS settings following previous BTC DNS outages, it meant that mail wasn't received until BTCL fixed their DNS server. Customers running post office accounts on the old ADSL system should be prepared for some queries about transient errors and "mail could not be delivered for the past 4 hours"

Wed 5th Feb 2014 15:00 BPC restored power at circa 13h30.

Wed 5th Feb 2014 11:04 We have been running on backup power for over an hour. We do not anticipate any interruption to our services but services from third party service providers are outside of our control.

wed 5th Feb 2014 08:10 The BTCL DNS server (168.167.253.21) is still down causing delays for ADSL customers on the OLD ADSL system. BTC were notified about this yesterday morning.

Tue 4th Feb 2014 11:01 We see that one of the DNS servers (168.167.253.21) which BTCL is advertising to their ADSL customers is not working. This is probably the cause of the delays with their ADSL. We are trying to notify them.

Tue 4th Feb 2014 10:45 We have had numerous complaints from ADSL customers on BTCL's traditional ADSL of slow speeds and difficulty browsing. Customers connecting via our bandwidth on ADSL-Connect are unaffected. We are trying to contact BTCL.

Sat 1st Feb 2014 16:41 While investigating difficulties contacting our network yesterday afternoon we have ascertained that there was a major outage on BTCL's infrastructure affecting their metro ethernet and leased lines which lasted from 15h51 until 16h09. Our wireless customers and those connecting to us through our ADSL-Connect service as well as users connecting from other ISPs (who connect to the BINX using non-BTCL infrastructure) could reach our network. There was, however, no internet access via BTCL infrastructure during that period.

Fri 31st Jan 2014 11:37 We are still running on backup power. BPC have confirmed that the outage in G'West is due to load shedding. They earlier told us that they expected power to be restored at 11:00 however we can't get through to them to get an update.

Fri 31st Jan 2014 08:36 BTCL have notified us of planned work to be carried out at their RLU6 exchange between 23h00 Thu 06/02/14 and 04h00 Fri 07/02/14. All ADSL traffic will be affected for users connecting to that exchange which is situated adjacent to Gaborone Technical College in G'West.

Fri 31st Jan 2014 08:25 We are running on emergency power due to a power cut affecting part of Gaborone West. We do not anticipate any interruptions to service but we can make no promise for third party suppliers.

Thu 30th Jan 2014 09:55 We have reports of customers connecting through BBI's network being unable to access our servers. We have observed traffic coming from BBI through the Botswana Internet Exchange (BINX) but erroneously bearing a private, non-routable IP address. We are informing BBI.

Tue 10th Dec 2013 09:04 BTCL have informed us of planned work to be carried out at their Ghanzi exchange from 13h00 to 14h00 on Thu 12th Dec 2013. ADSL customers connected to that exchange should only experience a few minutes downtime. If the outage persists beyond 14h00 then please contact our service desk on 391-8444.

Mon 9th Dec 2013 10:53 BTCL have informed us of planned maintenance that will affect all data services including ADSL for customers connected to the main Jwaneng Exchange. The outage is scheduled to last from 22h00 on Thu 12th Dec until 04h00 on Fri 13th.

Mon 25th Nov 2013 12:15 Power was restored in G'West at 10:56 however it has just gone off again.

Mon 25th Nov 2013 09:07 Power in G'West went off at 09:00. We are running on backup power but do not anticipate any interruption to services.

Sat 23rd Nov 2013 12:14 we note that there was an unexplained interruption to BTCL's Metro services from 04h10 to 04h20 today.

Fri 22nd Nov 2013 16:30 BTCL have advised us of a fibre cut near the Orange Camphill building affecting traffic between their MSU1 Exchange (Megaleng) and their MSU2 Exchange (G'West). Although they haven't specified what services are affected we suspect that ADSL, data and possibly voice services in Gabs West may be subject to interruption or congestion. BTCL are working to repair the cable.

Tue 19th Nov 2013 17:45 We finally got through to BPC and they confirm that we are again exeriencing load-shedding. They expect power to be restored at 20h00.

Tue 19th Nov 2013 17:25 We are running on backup power due to a power cut affecting parts of Gaborone West. We do not anticipate any interruption to service but third-party service providers will be reliant on their own emergency power arrangements.

Tue 19th Nov 2013 17:04 BTCL have advised us of emergency planned maintenance that will cause interruptions to data and ADSL services for customers connected to the Francistown main exchange. The outage is scheduled to last from 21h00 on Tue 19th Nov until 01h00 on Wed 20th Nov.

Fri 15th Nov 2013 17:23 BTCL have advised us of emergency planned maintenance that will cause interruptions to data and ADSL services for 4 hours during a time window from 10h00 until 16h00 on 17th Nov 2013 at the following locations:
    Etsha6
    Etsha13
    Sepopa
    Seronga
    Nxamasere
    Shakawe
    Mohembo
    Maun

Tue 12th Nov 2013 11:41 BPC mains power was restored a few minutes ago.

Tue 12th Nov 2013 10:10 For the first time in quite a while we are experiencing a power outage. We are running on backup power and do not anticipate any interruption to services however we cannot speak for third-party providers who are outside of our control.

Mon 28th Oct 2013 15:50 At the request of Botswana Telecoms we are in the process of migrating our ADSL customers from their 'traditional ADSL' product to a different service branded ADSL-Connect. This involves us visiting each of our customers, making configuration changes on their ADSL modems and liaising with BTC to make changes at their exchanges. Our Service Desk will contact each customer to agree a time when the migration should take place.

Fri 18th Oct 2013 12:10 We are experiencing serious problems with BTC's ADSL-Connect service. The problem seems to exist between the customer and BTC's termination point onour network. Not all ADSL-Connect customers are affected. We are trying to resolve the issue with BTC.

Mon 14th Oct 2013 10:15 All ADSL customers should have normal connectivity now. Any customers still having problems should please call our service desk on 391-8444. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Mon 14th Oct 2013 09:58 There is a problem preventing our ADSL-Connect customers reaching our network. We are investigating the cause.

Fri 11th Oct 2013 17:53 BTC have advised us of a problem with their RLU-3 exchange at UB. ADSL customers connected there are experiencing extremely slow or intermittent internet access. Any affected customers are requested to contact our service desk on 391-8444 so that we can ensure that their problems are resolved.

Tue 8th Oct 2013 15:45 A problem that prevented some of our customers connecting to one of our outgoing mail servers has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Tue 1st Oct 2013 11:58 It appears that some RSA destinations are not reachable via BTC bandwidth although they are reachable from other providers. BTC have been informed.

Wed 25th Sep 2013 17:10 BTC is reported to have restored services to blocks 8 and 10 at about 15:15 today. Any ADSL customers in those areas still without service are requested to contact our service desk on 391-8444

Wed 25th Sep 2013 12:26 BTC report that they are still struggling to restore service to blocks 8 and 10 which was interrupted by a cable cut by thieves at 22h00 on 23rd Sep.

Tue 24th Sep 2013 15:58 ADSL access to blocks 8 and 10 has been affected by a BTC fibre cut. BTC are currently re-splicing the cable.

Wed 4th Sep 2013 12:24 BTC have informed us of a fibre cut between Francistown and Tonota that ocurred prior to 10h00 this morning. BTC is currently splicing the cable.
Mon 2nd Sep 2013 12:27 It appear that whatever the cause of the BTC outage just now they have fixed it. As far as we can tell all voice and data are now working correctly.

Mon 2nd Sep 2013 12:20 A few moments ago we lost all communications with Botswana Telecoms. Their data bandwidth to us as well as their voice network. We are tying to ascertain the extent of the outage.

Fri 30th Aug 2013 09:33 BTC have informed us of maintenance planned for Fri 6th Sep from 23h00 to 23h15 which will affect ADSL services in Phakalane, Bokaa, Morwa and Odi as well as Data services through their RLU9 exchange in Phakalane.

Thu 22nd Aug 2013 16:45 BTC has just restored our internet feed.

Thu 22nd Aug 2013 15:30 We have just lost our main internet link though BTC. Our leased-line, metro, wireless and dialup customers as well as those using ADSL CONNECT will have no internet access. We have access to other ADSL customers through the Botswana Internet Exchange who will still have internet access. We are trying to get an explanation from Botswana Telecoms.

Fri 16th Aug 2013 07:55 Botswana Telecoms has warned of a major planned outage affecting many ADSL, internet and Metro customers throughout the country. The outage is scheduled to last from Sun 18th Aug 21h00 until Mon 19th Aug 05h00. It will affect the above-mentioned services for customers attached to their MSU-1 exchange (Megaleng) their MSU-2 exchange (G'West) as well as Jwaneng, Ghanzi, Maun and Orapa.

Sun 16th Jun 2013 10:27 There is still no news from BTC on when their bandwidth problem will be resolved. ADSL bandwidth is virtually useless for all except local and RSA sites. Metro Ethernet bandwidth is excruciatingly slow.
Customers may be interested to know that some on-line services, such as Google, use 'edge-of-network' servers some of which are located in RSA and so may still be accessible. Google, in particular, allows access to its 'cached copy' of a webpage. This feature is accessed via the green arrow adjacent to the website address in the search results. It may be necessary to click on the 'Text-only version' link in order to view content.

Sat 15th Jun 2013 15:20 Most international internet access is still slow. BTC has informed us that there was maintenance planned for the WACS submarine cable for the 14th to 20th June. It appears that their planned re-routing of traffic via other links has, so far, not been fully successful. They assure us that they and their providers are working around the clock to restore full service.

Fri 14th Jun 2013 19:50 Although there is no official word it appears that BTC have resolved their problems or that at least the current volume of traffic is being adequately handled by the BTC links that are functioning.

Fri 14th Jun 2013 16:35 BTC has acknowledged that they have suffered a failure of their WACS links. They are working to restore full service.

Fri 14th Jun 2013 14:17 Internet access is now possible on BTC bandwidth alhough the response is very slow.

Fri 14th Jun 2013 14:05 It appears that Botswana Telecoms has suffered a major failure affecting almost all, if not all, of their international internet traffic. Access to local sites appears to be unaffected. We are trying to get information from BTC but, so far, without any success.

Tue 11th Jun 2013 11:51 Botswana Telecoms have informed us of planned work to be carried out at the times and places below:

     Sat 15th Jun 2013 23h00 to 23h30 Bobonong
     Sun 16th Jun 2013 00h30 to 01h00 Molalatau
     Sun 16th Jun 2013 02h00 to 02h30 Tsetsebjwe

The work involves migrating ADSL customers in those areas to new infrastructure. Customers in those areas experiencing significant outages beyond the listed times are requested to contact our helpdesk.

Thu 6th Jun 2013 09:55 Dialup users are unable to authenticate on our network. We are working to resolve the problem. Any affected customers are encouraged to contact our service desk on 391-8444 if they would like to be notified once normal service has been restored. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thu 16th May 2013 11:15 The few customers still experiencing problems had their access to our network restored at 08:42. Any customers still unable to reach, for example, our mail servers, are requested to contact our service desk on 391-8444.

Thu 16th May 2013 08:00 Although most of our customers can connect to our network there are a few who cannot. We hope to have connectivity fully restored within the course of this morning.

Wed 15th May 2013 22:00 We are working on a problem that is preventing some ADSL customers from accessing our network.

Mon 13th May 2013 07:13 A problem that prevented customers from accessing some of our services overnight haws been resolved we apologize for the inconvenience.

Wed May 8th 2013 16:57 It appears that BTC have managed isolate the cause of the problem with their network (which was related to one of their RSA links which took traffic to Akamai edge-of-network servers). Internet access should now be back to normal. Any customers still experiencing problems should please contact our service desk on 391-8444.

Wed May 8th 2013 12:34 BTC has acknowledged the ongoing problem with Internet access but has no explanation or projected time to fix. We can confirm that, at least in some cases for ADSL customers, lowering the MTU on the ADSL modem to 1496 can facilitate normal web browsing. We do not advocate inexperienced users making such changes; rather BTC should address this problem centrally.

May 8th 2013 07:12 Customers using BTC bandwidth are still experiencing extreme difficulties accessing many websites. Despite our earlier retraction, it does seem as if lowering the MTU setting (IT Professionals only please) solves the problem.

Tue May 7th 2013 17:02 Feedback from our customers indicates that many still have almost no internet access.

Tue May 7th 2013 16:28 As far as we can tell internet access is now working properly through BTC bandwidth although BTC are unaware of the cause of the instability. Any customers still experiencing difficulties are requested to contact our service desk on 391-8444.

Tue May 7th 2013 15:15 Woops! It looks like we our analysis was premature. Internet access is still extremely unreliable even after changing the MTU.

Tue May 7th 2013 15:03 Once again we believe that the problem with internet access for some users is an MTU problem on a BTC router. Techies who know how to manipulate the MTU may do so in order to enable access to otherwise unreachable sites. We will, however, request BTC to fix the problem themselves.

Tue May 7th 2013 14:08 Internet access is very slow via BTC bandwidth. BTC do not know the reason but are investigating.

Tue May 7th 2013 07:40 A problem which prevented some of our customers from accessing our services overnight has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Tue Apr 23rd 2013 14:53 There has been a break in the undersea portion of the EASSY cable. Traffic is being routed via alternative routes but there may be some consequent congestion (slowdown). This will affect international traffic for ADSL, leased-line, wireless and dialup customers.

Tue Apr 23rd 2013 11:00 We have noticed that some organizations receiving bandwidth directly from Botswana Telecoms are unable to reach our network. The problem, at least in part, seems to be related to routing at BTC. Any affected organizations should take this up with their ISP however if they contact our helpdesk on 391-8444 then we will forward the info to BTC.

Mon Apr 22nd 2013 15:07 Our WAN links to F'Town and Maun are both down.

Sun Apr 21st 2013 19:45 A problem that was preventing acces to our network since approx 16h00 has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Wed Apr 17th 2013 15:13 Botswana Telecoms has warned us of planned work which will affect all ADSL customers connected to their MSU-1 Exchange (Megaleng) in Gaborone. The outage is scheduled for 22h00 to 23h59 tomorow, Thu 18th April.

Wed Apr 17th 2013 13:30 Power in G'West has been restored.

Wed Apr 17th 2013 11:29 We have been running on backup power for about 30 minutes. We do not anticipate any adverse effects on our services but third party providers may suffer interruptions.

Wed Apr 17th 2013 09:23 Our WAN link to Francistown is down. F'Town dialup customers are requested to use our Gaborone number (365-7600) for the time being. Affected customers are welcome to call our help desk on 391-8444 if they would like to be notified once the link is restored.

Mon Apr 15th 2013 07:56 We note that BTC's DNS server vpsm.btc.bw has been down since Friday morning. Their ns1.btc.bw server, which is authoritative for dot-bw has been up and down continuously for much longer, sometimes being down for 2 hours at a stretch.

Fri Apr 5th 2013 16:30 BTC have just informed us of emergency work they are currently carrying out in Mahalapye. This affects all ADSL customers in the neighbourhood of Mahlalapye. Service is expected to be restored by 18h00.

Fri Apr 5th 2013 14:37 We have observed that BTC's name server vpsm.btc.bw has been down for over 24 hours and their ns1.btc.bw name server has been up and down frequently over that period, sometimes being down for an hour at a time. BTC say they have now addressed the problem.

Thu Apr 4th 2013 10:40 BTC's ADSL is now working for all users. It appears that the problem originated at about 16:00 yesterday. Any customers who are still experiencing problems with their ADSL connection are requested to contact our help desk on 391-8444.

Thu Apr 4th 2013 08:45 BTC are unaware of what the problem is with their ADSL service. Affected customers are encouraged to contact our help desk so that we can gather their details to assist BTC in debugging the problem. We will also notify those customers once full service is restored.

Thu Apr 4th 2013 08:12 There appears to be a major problem with BTC's ADSL service. We are trying to contact BTC to establish what has gone wrong.

Wed Apr 3rd 2013 17:09 Once again we have been experiencing problems sending mail to addresses on the gov.bw domain. It appears that their network started accepting mail again at about 16:20 today. We have managed to push through all the mail that we had queued up for them.

Wed Mar 27th 2013 17:35 We are running on backup power because of a power failure affecting part of G'West. We do not anticipate any service interruption however we cannot answer for third-party services outside of our control.

Wed Mar 20th 2013 10:45 Internet browsing is very slow. BTC blames a problem with one of their international links.

Tue 19th Mar 2013 07:57 BTC fixed its 168.167.252.242 nameserver at 18:10 yesterday.

Mon 18th Mar 2013 16:51 We note that the BTC nameserver 168.167.252.242 which is one of two DNS servers advertised to BTC ADSL customers stopped responding at 12:05. It is possible that there may be difficulty accessing internet sites depending on the nature of the DNS failure and the measures taken to address it. We have notified BTC.

Mon 18th Mar 2013 09:11 BTC have advised us of several planned outages required to maintain/upgrade their network. The affected users, the durations and dates are listed below:

     18/03/13 23h00 - 03h00 Data and ADSL around Metsimotlhabe and Letlhakeng.
     18/03/13 23h00 - 04h00 Metro Data and ADSL connecting to MSU2
     18/03/13 23h00 - 02h30 Data and ADSL around Bobonong and Molalatau
     18/03/13 23h00 - 03h00 Data and ADSL around Metsimotlhabe and Letlhakeng
     19/03/13 22h00 - 23h59 Metro, Data and ADSL connecting to MSU2
     19/03/13 22h00 - 23h59 Metro and ADSL connecting to Gaborone RLU3

MSU2 is BTC's Main Switching Unit in G/West. Gaborone RLU3 is near the University of Botswana

Fri 15th Mar 2013 14:05 BTC have fixed their issue with ADSL access and they have also restored access to their DNS server at 168.167.252.242. Any customers still experiencing problems with ADSL are requested to contact our service desk on 391-8444.

Fri 15th Mar 2013 11:36 BTC are still experiencing a major failure of their ADSL network. Affected customers who would like be notified once services are fully restored are invited to coantact our Service Dsk on 391-8444.

Fri 15th Mar 2013 11:01 We still don't have an explanation from BTC of what has gone wrong with their ADSL network. It appears from what we can see that there are at least two separate problems:
1) Many ADSL customers have no internet access at all
2) Those customers who do have internet access may have difficulties browsing as one of the DNS servers that BTC advertises to ADSL customers (168.167.252.242) is not answering queries.

Fri 15th Mar 2013 10:27 It appears that BTC started experiencing major problems with ADSL at 09:30.

Wed 13th Mar 2013 11:02 Once more we are having trouble sending mail to the gov.bw domain. The only gov.bw mailserver that had been accepting mail is now variously reporting that its disk is full or that it has disk errors. We advise customers to to try to use web-based services such as GMail to correspond with gov.bw addressees.

Fri 8th Mar 2013 08:03 Mail delivery to the gov.bw domain has been working properly for the past week.

Wed 27th Feb 2013 14:35 We are trying to investigate the ongoing issues connecting to the gov.bw mail servers. We understand, however that their mail service has been degenerating over the past few days and has now completely halted. Once again, we advise customers anxious to email to gov.bw to arrange with their correspondents to use third party web-based services sucha as GMail.

Thu 21st Feb 2013 16:20 Connection to gov.bw name servers is extremely erratic. As a consequence many emails to gov.bw-hosted domains are being delayed.

Wed 20th Feb 2013 14:15 BTC have notified us of a failure in their infrastructure which they say ocurred at 21h00 yesterday and which had a major impact on ADSL traffic.

Tue 19th Feb 2013 21:45 A problem that was preventing customers from accessing our network since 20h00 has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Tue 19th Feb 2013 11:50 We are receiving numerous reports from ADSL customers complaining that their internet access is going on and off. BTC deny that there is a problem so we would like any affected customers to contact us so that we can help them to establish a pattern.

Mon 18th Feb 2013 17:10 ADSL customers can now access the global.bw servers.

Mon 18th Feb 2013 16:57 A correction to the previous item. There are various problems associated with changes being made to the management of the Botswana DNS. Any owners of domains hosted by Bytes Botswana who are experiencing problems are requested to contact our help desk as soon as possible.

Mon 18th Feb 2013 15:53 It appears that the problem with Global.bw customers accessing their mail from ADSL is a DNS problem at BTC. Neither of the two nameservers advertised to ADSL customers, 168.167.253.21 and 168.167.252.242 can resolve records on the global.bw domain. We are notifying BTC. Affected customers can "hard code" the following IP addresses in their email client configuration or they can wait for BTC to fix the problem.
outgoing mail - mail.global.bw - 168.167.100.35
incoming mail - smtp.global.bw - 168.167.100.36

Mon 18th Feb 2013 15:32 A number of our ADSL customers are unable to connect to the mail servers for the global.bw domain. We are investigating the problem and request any affected customers to contact our helpdesk on 391-8444.

Mon 18th Feb 2013 08:48 We have been unable to contact the gov.bw nameservers since Friday afternoon. Mail for addresses at gov.bw-hosted domains is therefore being delayed.

Fri 15th Feb 2013 17:34 BPC restored power to us at 17:00.

Fri 15th Feb 2013 14:56 Our WAN link to Francistown is down due to a power failure in that city. Dialup services are available via our Gaborone PoP. We still have no BPC power at our Gaborone office.

Fri 15th Feb 2013 14:03 We have been running on backup power since 10:47. We don't anticipate any interruption to our services but we cannot guarantee the performance of third party providers.

Fri 15th Feb 2013 09:00 Some of our ADSL customers are seeing messages on their screen asking them to pay their BTC bills even though, when asked, BTC confirms that their bills have been paid. Any affected customers are requested to contact our help desk on 391-8444 so that we can take up the issue with BTC.

Thu 14th Feb 2013 10:20 Our Francistown link has been restored.

Thu 14th Feb 2013 09:45 Dialup services through our Gabs offices have been restored.

Thu 14th Feb 2013 09:30 Our WAN links to Maun and Francistown are currently down. There is a separate problem affecting our dial-in lines in Gaborone. Dialup customers who are having trouble connecting are requested to contact our help desk on 391-8444. We will then notify them once services are fully restored.

Tue 12th Feb 2013 09:38 Once again we have noticed large delays sending mail to gov.bw servers.

Mon 11th Feb 2013 12:42 Since approximately 16:30 on Fri BTC have had a problem with their network which is negatively affecting a number of ADSL customers as well as customers purchasing premium services from BTC. It has taken us some time to isolate the problem however it seems that it is the same problem which caused large disruption in July 2012 (see below). Affected customers may have trouble sending mail and connecting to certain websites such as Yahoo!
IT support staff who are technicallly competent can alleviate the problem by lowering the MTU on customer ADSL modems or border routers etc., however it is BTC who ought to address the problem centrally. We have tried to make BTC aware of the problem.

Sat 9th Feb 2013 10:33 BTC managed to restore their data services a few minutes ago.

Sat 9th Feb 2013 10:00 BTC suffered a major outage due to a serious failure in their phase 2 switch at 08:50. Most ADSL and data connections are down countrywide.

Fri 8th Feb 2013 22:25 BTC have restored access to their MSU2 exchange. We are still, however, experiencing problems with some BTC data lines. Any customers who note problems are encouraged to contact our help desk on 391-8444.

Fri 8th Feb 2013 21:50 BTC have confirmed that they have lost touch with their MSU2 exchange and suspect a power failure there.

Fri 8th Feb 2013 21:35 BTC appears to have lost all internet and voice traffic in Gaborone West. We presume that their MSU2 exchange is down.

Wed 6th Feb 2013 23:26 It appears that changes are being made to the Botswana DNS and to the records that the .BW name servers hold. We have been scanning those servers records and we have identified some incorrect re-delegations. We have also determined that some ISPs are hosting "authoritative" records for zones that do not belong to them. Any customers experiencing difficulties receiving mail from specific domains are requested to contact our help desk on 391-8444 so that we can investigate on their behalf.

Mon 4th Feb 2013 15:40 BTC has informed us of intermittent problems with their international data links that are affecting internet access.

Mon 4th Feb 2013 08:20 It appears that gov.bw fixed the problem that was preventing access to their DNS servers at 08:04. Mail to gov.bw hosted domains is now starting to flow.

Mon 4th Feb 2013 08:10 Once again there are severe delays sending mail to addresses at gov.bw.

Fri 1st Feb 2013 10:27 We are, once again, running on backup power due to a power outage. We do not anticipate any interruption to service but we cannot guarantee third party suppliers' services.

Sat 26th Jun 2013 08:30 Access to customers mail was disrupted overnight. No mail has been lost and all of our services are fully functional. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Mon 21st Jan 2013 09:21 We note that one of dot-BW name servers, ns4.btc.bw, has been down since Friday afternoon. We have notified BTC. As far we can tell the other BW name servers are operating correctly and there should be no impact on internet-based services.

Tue 15th Jan 2013 14:25 We have been experiencing numerous power cuts today. The power has just gone down again. We are confident in our own backup power arrangements however there may be interruptions to service for traffic delivered over third party providers outside of our control.

Tue 15th Jan 2013 09:27 We are experiencing a power outage in Gaborone West and our systems are running on backup power. We do not anticipate any interruption to services but we cannot speak for third party providers.

Wed 9th Jan 2013 23:18 Our mail services have now been restored. We regret that unread mail prior to 12:20 this afternoon has been lost. Mail since that time was safely queued and is now being delivered. This process may take about 30 minutes due to the large volume of stored mail. We apologize for the interruption to service. Customers with queries are requested to contact our help desk on 391-8444.

Wed 9th Jan 2013 18:40 We are still working to restore mail access to some info.bw POP users. We apologize for the delay. We expect to have access restored tonight.

Wed 9th Jan 2013 12:20 There is a problem preventing some customers accessing their POP mail. We are working to address the issue.

Tue 18th Dec 2012 16:43 BTC have just informed us of emergency works to be carried out in Gaborone West tonight. The works are expected to affect Gaborone West Phase 1, Rail Park Mall, Gaborone Hotel and Orange Camphill. The outage is scheduled to last from 19h00 tonight until 07h00 tomorrow. We presume that voice as well as data traffic will be affected.
As the outage will also affect our offices, leased line services to customers as well as our WAN connections to other parts of the country will be down.

Thu 13th Dec 2012 08:13 Our WAN link to F'Town is down. BTC have been informed.

Sat 8th Dec 2012 20:05 BTC's network was finally fully restored at 19:26.

Sat 8th Dec 2012 16:09 Our WAN links to Maun, F'Town & Phikwe are also down due to BTC's fibre cut.

Sat 8th Dec 2012 16:09 Botswana Telecoms suffered a fibre cut at 13:36 that is affecting internet connectivity for ADSL, metro ethernet and leased line customers. BTC's expected repair time has already lapsed. They hope connectivity will be restored in the next few hours.

Fri 7th Dec 2012 17:23 Mail to the gov.bw domain started flowing again at 13:07 today.

Fri 7th Dec 2012 11:54 Currently we cannot access the gov.bw nameservers. Mail to addresses at gov.bw mail be delayed or refused.

Fri 7th Dec 2012 10:08 BTC have confirmed that they had an equipment problem that prevented ADSL access in Kasane from approx 09:00 until 17:00 on 5th Dec.

Wed 5th Dec 2012 15:12 Access to the gov.bw network has been intermittent over the past few days and mail to gov.bw addresses is subject to extended delays.

Mon 26th Nov 2012 14:12 The gov.bw network became reachable again at 09:19 today. All mail for gov.bw destinations (inc burs.org.bw) has now been delivered.

Thu 22nd Nov 2012 08:36 We see that the gov.bw network has been unreachable since yesterday 16:30.

Fri 16th Nov 2012 11:06 BTC have fixed the routing problem which was preventing access to some sites in RSA.

Thu 15th Nov 2012 15:55 There appears to be a problem accessing some sites in RSA from ADSL. We are looking into the problem.

Thu 15th Nov 2012 15:50 The network admins at gov.bw appear to have resolved a problem that was, once again, preventing mail bein delivered to their network.

Tues 13th Nov 2012 08:11 BTC report that the fibre cut(s) in RSA have now been repaired and full service has been restored. We note, however, that internet access is still extremely slow.

Mon 12th Nov 2012 16:14 The cause of slow internet access via BTC bandwidth is reported to be due to multiple fibre cuts on the Neotel network in RSA. BTC reports that both voice and data are affected. Currently there is no news as to when full service will be restored.

Mon 5th Nov 2012 11:34 We note that we were unable to reach the gov.bw mail servers again from 14:30 on Fri until 08:34 today.

Tue 30th Oct 2012 08:30 Our WAN link to Maun is down. BTC are working to restore it.

Mon 29th Oct 2012 08:53 Once again we are having difficulty reaching Botswana Government mail servers. Undelivered mail will remain in our queue while we retry delivery and will be kept for 5 days before being returned to sender.

Mon 22nd Oct 2012 12:11 Mail to our POP3 info.bw customers is being delayed due to a large spam storm. We are currently blocking and clearing the spam and mail will be flowing normally soon. We apologize for the delay.

Fri 19th Oct 2012 14:57 A problem that prevented some users from accessing their mail boxes for about 40 mins has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thu 18th Oct 2012 16:43 We have noticed heavy packet loss and slow speeds accessing the internet over BTC's Metro-ethernet bandwidth. We also notice heavy packet loss on ADSL.

Thu 18th Oct 2012 16:17 Botswana Telecoms has informned us of planned works scheduled to last from midnight of 19th Oct 2012 until 01h00 20th Oct which will affect all Metro-ethernet and ADSL customers in Jwaneng, Ghanzi, Tsabong and Hukuntsi.

Thu 18th Oct 2012 08:35 Our website and our hosted websites were unavailable from 05:30 until a few minutes ago. We aplogize for the interruption to service.

Wed 17th Oct 2012 16:05 Our WAN links to Francistown are down due to a power failure affecting part of the city.

Thu 12th Oct 2012 08:10 BTC have informed us of planned work in the Francistown area that will affect all services (i.e. voice and data including ADSL) served by the following exchanges at the times indicated:
     12/10/12 23h00 - 03h00 F/Town RLU 1
     12/10/12 23h00 - 03h00 F/Town RLU 2
     13/10/12 23h00 - 03h00 F/Town RLU 3
     13/10/12 23h00 - 03h00 F/Town RLU 4
     14/10/12 23h00 - 03h00 Nyangabgwe
     14/10/12 23h00 - 03h00 Mandunyane
     15/10/12 23h00 - 03h00 Shashe Mooke
     15/10/12 23h00 - 03h00 Matsiloje
     16/10/12 23h00 - 03h00 Masunga
     16/10/12 23h00 - 03h00 Senete
     17/10/12 23h00 - 03h00 Tutume RLU
     17/10/12 23h00 - 03h00 Tutume MW
     18/10/12 23h00 - 03h00 Sowa RLU
     18/10/12 23h00 - 03h00 Didibakwe

Wed 10th Oct 2012 15:43 Mail is now flowing to and from gov.bw. The cause of the problem was a changed BGP advertisement at the Botswna Internet Exchange (BINX). The problems with the Botswana DNS that we discovered, however, remain and may cause problems with access to the gov.bw, ac.bw and org.bw domains. We have provided more detailed information on our Botswana DNS Information Page

Wed 10th Oct 2012 11:45 We are having trouble sending mail to and receiving mail from addresses at gov.bw. We can see that there are some serious problems with the Botswana DNS which appears to be the cause of the problem.

Tue 2nd Oct 2012 20:54 We note that parts of BTC's ADSL network are extremely slow. This will cause problems accessing local sites as well as sites hosted internationally.

Fri 28th Sep 2012 16:44 BTC has informed us of planned work scheduled for 30th Sep from 08h00 until 19h00 that will affect customers connecting to their MSU-1 exchange (Megaleng, near the main Mail). Individual customers should only be affected for 15 minutes. We presume this will affect ADSL and leased line customers.

Fri 21st Sep 2012 07:47 There is a power cut affecting our part of Gaborone West. We are running on backup power but do not anticipate any interruption to services. Third party providers might, of course, be affected.

Thu 20th Sep 2012 17:11 The difficulty accessing some RSA sites was caused by a problem on the Vodacom network which was resolved at about 13:05. Internet access should now be back to normal.

Thu 20th Sep 2012 12:38 BTC seems to have resolved their problem with DNS for ADSL customers however we see that many RSA domains are still enreachable.

Thu 20th Sep 2012 12:18 The problems at BTC are not limited to their ADSL service. All internet access is very slow and RSA sites seem to be unreachable.

Thu 20th Sep 2012 12:05 ADSL customers who are a bit technically minded can get internet access by using alternate DNS servers such as ns1.btc.bw and ns4.btc.bw (168.167.168.34 and 168.167.253.20 respectively). We had some trouble even with those DNS servers for a while so it may be preferable to use 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 which are free DNS servers provided by Google. We have contacted BTC and they are aware of the problem.

Thu 20th Sep 2012 11:47 We have noticed that many, perhaps all, ADSL customers are unable to browse because of the failure of the two DNS servers (168.167.253.21 and 168.167.253.21) which are advertised to ADSL connections. We are trying to notify BTC.

Wed 19th Sep 2012 07:45 Botswana Telecoms recently launched their connectivity to the West Africa Cable System (WACS). For the record, yesterday they experienced their first outage on the system which lasted from 13h59 until 14:42. The cause is, as yet, unknown. As far as we can tell, none of our ADSL or directly-connected customers were significantly affected.

Thu 17th Sep 2012 10:56 BTC have informed us of planned work that will affect ADSL services in the Kanye and Pitsane areas from 23h30 on 17/09/2012 until 03h00 on 18/09/12.

Wed 5th Sep 2012 14:25 We have noticed queues forming on our mail servers for mail destined for mopipi.ub.bw. The problem is a DNS failure for the ub.bw domain. The mail will start to flow once UB fix their DNS.

Wed 5th Sep 2012 08:31 BTC have informed us of planned maintenance that will disrupt ADSL access for some users connecting to their MSU-1 (Megaleng) exchange in Gaborone. The work is scheduled to last from Midnight tonight until 05h00 tomorrow. Individual users should only be affected for up to 10 mins.

Fri 24th Aug 2012 07:55 Our F'Town and Phikwe links were restored shortly after midnight.

Thu 23rd Aug 2012 08:41 We regret to say that BTC still hasn't fixed our WAN links to Francistown and Phikwe. Dialup customers in those areas will have to contiunue to use our Gaborone POP.

Wed 22nd Aug 2012 15:26 Our WAN links to Francistown and Phikwe are still down. Some other links have been repaired so we are hopeful that service can be restrored today.

Tue 21st Aug 2012 15:22 Our WAN links to Francistown and Phikwe have been down since Sun 10:25. BTC has been informed. Affected dialup customers are requested to use our Gaborone POP on 365-7600

Thu 16th Aug 2012 15:44 BTC has informed us of planned works that will interrupt ADSL access in the Rakops area on Wed 17th Aug 2012. The exercise will last from 22h00 until midnight but individual lines should only be down for approx 30 minutes .

Tue 31st Jul 2012 11:16 It appears that BTC have finally fixed their problem which was preventing access to Facebook & Yahoo! Any customers still experiencing difficulty with ADSL access to those or other sites are requested to contact our help desk on 391-8444 so that we can investigate.

Tue 31st Jul 2012 08:38 BTC's ADSL network is still suffering serious problems. For those customers who are experiencing the problem accessing Yahoo! and Facebook please be advised that there is a technical means by which the problem may be alleviated. This involves lowering the MTU value on the ADSL modem.
     We do not advocate this action as putting incorrect settings in your ADSL modem may cause a variety of other problems. In any case BTC is better placed to resolve the problem for all ADSL customers. Unfortunately we are still awaiting a remedy from BTC.

Mon 30th Jul 2012 16:17 For almost a week many of our customers as well as those of other Internet Service Providers have been unable to open certain websites including Yahoo! and Facebook using BTC's ADSL service.
     Unfortunately this is a problem which is caused by BTC's handling of the ADSL traffic and we have no control over this. We strongly suspect that the cause is related to their configuration of a bandwidth management device on their network.
     We have brought this to BTC's attention several times but we are still awaiting any constructive response. We advise customers who are frustrated by the ADSL service to contact our sales department (391-8444) about other connectivity options such as wireless or leased lines where we have more ability to provide quality of service.

Thu 26th Jul 2012 08:06 For the third day running there is still no resolution to the problem affecting many customers trying to access Yahoo! and certain other websites using BTC's ADSL bandwidth. We urge affected customers to contact us so that we can add their complaints to those we have already sent to BTC.

Wed 25th Jul 2012 11:40 The problem affecting some ADSL customers still persists. We have notified BTC of the issue and are trying to help them to investigate. We request any customers experiencing trouble accessing Yahoo! and Facebook via ADSL to please contact our helpdesk on 391-8444.

Tue 24th Jul 2012 11:05 We have had reports from several customers and we have observed difficulties in accessing some websites such as Yahoo! & Facebook from *some* ADSL connections. We are trying to escalate the problem with BTC.

Wed 18th Jul 2012 09:14 It appears that Gov.bw are experiencing problems with their mail again. We cannot send mail to their domain and we are receiving no mail from them. We advise affected users to use a 3rd party web-based solution such as gmail.

Thu 5th Jul 2012 17:24 Botswana Telecoms has notified us of emergency works to be carried out at their MSU-1 exchange (Megaleng) starting at 23h00 for a period of 2 hours. Although they do not anticipate an outage if there is a problem then all voice and data customers, including ADSL, connecting through MSU-1, would be affected.

Thu 5th July 2012 13:55 The gov.bw network administrators fixed their problem with outgoing mail to our network at 16:55 on Jun 29th.

Thu 28th Jun 2012 11:45 A problem that was preventing some customers from accessing our network from ADSL has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thu 28th Jun 2012 08:09 There is still no email access to or from addresses at gov.bw. We advise government employees to use a third party web-based email service such as Gmail until their own service is restored.

Wed 27th Jun 2012 08:28 Once again gov.bw is experiencing difficulties with their mail system. Since yesterday 16:22 the gov.bw mailservers have been refusing mail. The gov.bw administrators are aware of the problem. We have reports that users at gov.bw have been unable to send outbound mail to us for much longer. We are investigating this problem with their admins.

Tue 19th Jun 2012 20:45 Our verdict on BTC's problems was premature. The ADSL network remains extremely unstable.

Tue 19th Jun 2012 19:15 BTC seems to have sorted out their problems at about 18:00. ADSL bandwidth appears to be normal. Our Maun link, however, remains down.

Tue 19th Jun 2012 17:05 There is currently no update from BTC about their data problems.

Tue 19th Jun 2012 16:05 It appears that BTC is experiencing problems with ADSL and leased lines due to the failure of their node at Camphill/Orange. Some ADSL customers connecting to other exchanges such as Broadhurst are unable to reach our network. The problem appears to have arisen at about 15:30.
Our WAN link to Maun is currently down apparently a victim of the same outage.

Wed 13th Jun 2012 08:55 BTC have told us of "emergency" planned work to be carried out at the times and places below:

     Thu 14th Jun 2012 08h00 to 17h00 Bobonong
     Sat 16th Jun 2012 08h00 to 17h00 Letlhakane

The work involves migrating ADSL customers in those areas to new infrastructure. BTC expects the maximum downtime to be 5 mins per subscriber. Customers in those areas experiencing significant outages are requested to contact our helpdesk.

Tue 12th Jun 2012 16:42 BTC have notified us of planned work that will affect ADSL customers connecting to their Kanye RLU1 exchange. The downtime is expected to be from 00h01 until 04h00 on Fri 15th June.

Tue 12th Jun 2012 10:24 Once again the DNS servers for GOV.BW are unreachable. This means that gov.bw websites are unreachable and mail and other services to gov.bw and burs.org.bw are down. For more information search the notifications below for "gov.bw"

Wed 6th Jun 2012 08:05 BTC appears to have resolved their Zambian routing issues a short while ago. Any customers still experiencing problems are encouraged to contact our helpdesk on 391-8444 or by email to support@info.bw, so that we can investigate further.

Tue 5th Jun 2012 17:04 We have noticed that some sites in Zambia are unreachable over BTC's bandwidth. The problem is a routing error in BTC's network. We have informed them.

Thu 31st May 2012 12:07 It appears that BTC has some new IP ranges for ADSL customers that they are routing to, but not advertising at, the Botswana Internet Exchange (BINX). As a temporary measure we are statically routing the IP range that we are aware of. We have notified BTC of the problem. We encourage any ADSL customers who are unable to connect to our websites or our mail servers to please contact our helpdesk on 391-8444 so that we can assist them.

Tue 29th May 2012 23:34 All customers affected by the email problem this afternoon have now been notified by email. Any customers requiring further assistance are welcome to contact our helpdesk on 391-8444. We, once again, express our regret for the loss of data.

Tue 29th May 2012 17:49 It appears that due to a database corruption some mail to some customers hosted on the info.bw domain was rejected as undeliverable this afternoon. The problem arose at 14:43 and was identified and resolved at 17:00. We are currently working to notify the affected customers of the details of each of the affected messages. We deeply apologize for the loss of mail.

Thu 24th May 2012 13:54 Our links to Maun are down due to a power outage there.

Wed 23rd May 2012 11:42 We note that there were interruptions to ADSL services for many of our customers between 08h47 and 09h20 today. It appears that BTC's network has been stable since that time.

Wed 16th May 2012 17:45 As far as we can tell BTC's ADSL network is now stable and we are returning our status page to green.

Wed 16th May 2012 12:20 BTC's ADSL network has been unstable since 18:00 yesterday. BTC say that they hope their problems will be sorted out shortly.

Mon 14th May 2012 15:40 It appears that BTC's Metro-Ethernet is back up.

Mon 14th May 2012 15:25 Although some more parts of the ADSL network have just come back up, BTC's Metro-Ethernet network is still down.

Mon 14th May 2012 14:34 We understand from BTC that they have experienced a power failure at MSU-1 (Megaleng). Some ADSL services seem to be working but much of BTC's network appears to be down.

Mon 14th May 2012 14:21 Internet access via BTC's Metro-Ethernet went down again at 14:11. We are investigating to ascertain the cause.

Sun 13th May 2012 19:10 BTC had a major failure of their Metro-Ethernet network at 16:00. They have just restored the service (19:05). During the outage our network, as well as those of some other Internet Service Providers and some major corporates, was unavailable. No mail has been lost but it may take some time for mail, which has been queued in destinations around the world, to trickle through to our servers. The fault of the outage was a network device on BTC's network which was undergoing maintenance.

Thu 10th May 2012 08:08 BTC's ADSL network stabilised at 17:00 yesterday.

Wed 9th May 2012 16:17 Once again it looks as if BTC has serious problems with its ADSL network. Today the problems started at 15h40.

Tue 8th May 2012 13:24 It appears that BTC's ADSL network has been stable since about 11:40 am. Any customers still without service are encouraged to call our help desk on 391-8444. We draw our users' attention to the notices about a planned outage tonight and BTC's ongoing "clean up" exercise mentioned further below.

Tue 8th May 2012 10:21 BTC are aware of the problems with ADSL which they believe were caused by a faulty router. As far as we can tell the problem is ongoing.

Tue 8th May 2012 09:56 Since 08:30 this morning we have noticed that ADSL connectivity has been up and down for some users. We are trying to find out from BTC what is the problem.

Mon 7th May 2012 18:03 We have been notified by BTC of emergency work to be carried out on their routers between 23h00 Tues May 8th and 04h00 Wed May 9th. Although the period for the work is estimated as 5 hours, the duration of any individual server outage is expected to be, at most, 15 mins. This work will affect all ADSL and Voice traffic country-wide.

Fri 4th May 2012 15:05 BTC have advised us of a "clean up" exercise that they are conducting on the userbase of ADSL services. Although they do not envisage any of our customers being affected, if any customers find their browsers receiving an "Error 606" and being redirected to BTC web page, then they should contact our helpdesk on 391-8444 so that we can liaise with BTC to get their service restored.
Please do not confuse this error message with "Error 606" on a Blackberry or "Error 606" when trying to connect via an Orange livebox. These are quite separate problems.

Mon 23rd Apr 2012 21:26 We see that BTC have fixed their faulty DNS server. ADSL browsing is back to normal.

Mon 23rd Apr 2012 18:20 ADSL customers have been having trouble browsing the web, often having to repeatedly refresh a page in order to get it to load. The problem is that one of BTC's name servers 168.167.252.242 is in trouble. It can only resolve local domain names but not international ones. BTC have been informed. If you are technically-minded then you can set your DNS settings to point to any of these name servers: 168.167.253.21 168.167.168.34 168.167.253.20.

Wed Apr 18th 2012 07:53 BTC resolved their frame-relay issues last night at 23:15 and all leased lines are now working.

Tue Apr 17th 2012 21:30 We note that Google services using https:// (secure http) are incredibly slow. If possible switch to http:// for a faster response. Other sites using https:// appear to be unaffected i.e. the problem seems to be localised to Google.

Tue Apr 17th 2012 21:05 It appears that BTC have been having some problems with their frame-relay for a few hours. This will affect those customer connecting to us via BTC leased-line as well as those ISPs relying on leased-line connectivity to the BINX.

Thu Apr 12th 2012 08:00 It looks as if BTC resolved their ADSL problems some time after 19:00 yesterday. We have no further information on the cause or if the problem is likely to reoccur.

Wed Apr 11th 2012 16:55 We still haven't had an acknowledgment from BTC that they are aware of the problems with their ADSL service. As far as we can tell the problems began today at about 14:30 and again at about 15:50 we see another drop in ADSL traffic.

Wed Apr 11th 2012 16:35 We have had numerous complaints about ADSL services being down. In particular Block 3 (Broadhurst Industrial, West of the railway) and Tlokweng. We have informed BTC however affected customers should still contact our helpdesk so we can be sure that every problem gets addressed.

Fri Apr 6th 2012 16:07 We note that, once again, the GOV.BW DNS is broken. The last time this happened the problem was blamed on their firewall. In some circumstances, if mail destined for addressees at gov.bw is not being accepted by our servers then increasing the timeout in your email client settings may be of help.

Tue Mar 27th 11:45 Customers have reported that they are not receiving emails from addresses at botswanapost.co.bw. We understand from Botswana Post that they are currently migrating from their old domain botspost.co.bw and they believe this is the cause. Botswana Post staff with this problem are urged to contact their IT dept and to provide them with sample delivery failure reports.

Tue Mar 20th 12:01 It looks as if all of our ADSL customers have network connectivity again. BTC acknowledges that there was a problem but have no idea of the cause nor the solution. If customers lose connectivity again then we encourage them to call our helpdesk on 391-8444 so that we can escalate the problem with BTC immediately.

Tue Mar 20th 11:48 As far as we can see about half of our ADSL customers have no network access at all. The problem appears to have started just prior to 11:00 am. BTC still haven't acknowledged the problem.

Tue Mar 20th 11:05 It appears that there is a serious problem with BTC's ADSL network. We have contacted BTC but they are unaware of any issue.

Thu Mar 15th 14:35 Although we have no official notification, it appears that BTC have fixed their problem with their Neotel link or have fixed their routing such that most sites appear to be reachable again.

Thu Mar 15th 11:45 BTC have a problem with their internet link via Neotel in RSA. Although their internet traffic should automatically switch to their other links it appears that some traffic is still persistently being routed to the broken Neotel link. Many sites are therefore unavailable.

Thu Mar 8th 17:21 It appears that ADSL and metro-ethernet bandwidth were both interrupted. BTC has restored connectivity but there is, as yet, no information as to what caused the outage. We had earlier noticed brief interruptions to internet connectivity so we are not convinced that the service is yet stable.

Thu Mar 8th 17:12 We lost internet access through BTC a few minutes ago. We are trying to understand the extent of the problem.

Thu Mar 8th 09:05 DIT fixed their firewall at 08:46. Government websites are now reachable. We are still clearing our gov.bw mail queues.

Thu Mar 8th 08:38 The GOV.BW DNS failure has been blamed on a firewall at the Govt. Department of IT. Their engineers are working on the firewall.

Thu Mar 8th 08:21 The problems with the GOV.BW DNS appear to have started at 14:53 yesterday. The Botswana Unified Revenue Service, burs.org.bw is also unreachable. Because of the delay trying to resolve gov.bw or burs.org.bw DNS records, some email clients may "timeout" while trying to send mail. In that case it may be necessary to increase the timeout setting in your email client. Please contact our helpdesk if you need help in doing this.

Thu Mar 8th 07:50 It seems that there is a serious problem with the DNS for GOV.BW. There are no servers which have records for the gov.bw domain. This means that Botswana Government websites cannot be reached and mail cannot be delivered to addresses at gov.bw. Although our servers will accept mail for gov.bw addresses there will be a delay while our servers futilely wait for DNS responses.

Thu Feb 28th 10:36 It appear that BTC had a repeat of their power problems at MSU1 and a repeat of the failure of their backup generators to supply the load. As a consequence all connectivity via BTC (ADSL, leased lines, metro ethernet) was down from 08:54 until 10:00.

Thu Feb 16th 23:00 Customers using BBI are unable to access our network (or most Botswana destinations). This is due to a routing problem at BBI.

Mon Feb 13th 11:47 BTC have informed us of planned work which will cause interruptions to ADSL services to customers served by various BTC Exchanges according to the table below. The interruptions are scheduled, in each case, from 23h59 until 04h00 the following day.

     14/02/12 23h59 - 04h00 Main Mall, Megaleng (MSU1)
     14/02/12 23h59 - 04h00 G'West (RLU6-2)
     14/02/12 23h59 - 04h00 G'West (RLU6)
     14/02/12 23h59 - 04h00 Palapye (MSU1)

     15/02/12 23h59 - 04h00 Orapa
     15/02/12 23h59 - 04h00 Phakalane (RLU9)
     15/02/12 23h59 - 04h00 Gabs Village (RLU4)
     15/02/12 23h59 - 04h00 Tlokweng (RLU11)
     15/02/12 23h59 - 04h00 Block 8 (RLU7)
     15/02/12 23h59 - 04h00 Fairgrounds (RLU13)
     15/02/12 23h59 - 04h00 Game City (RLU14)

     16/02/12 23h59 - 04h00 Mogoditshane (RLU5)
     16/02/12 23h59 - 04h00 Molepolole
     16/02/12 23h59 - 04h00 B'Hurst Industrial (RLU1)
     16/02/12 23h59 - 04h00 G'West (MSU2)
     16/02/12 23h59 - 04h00 F'Town Marang
     16/02/12 23h59 - 04h00 Lobatse

     17/02/12 23h59 - 04h00 Maun
     17/02/12 23h59 - 04h00 Jwaneng
     17/02/12 23h59 - 04h00 Sowaa
     17/02/12 23h59 - 04h00 B'Hurst Industrial (RLU2)

Mon Feb 13th 11:19 The cause of the major sytems outage suffered by BTC on 7th Feb was, apparently, the failure of their standby generators to service the load following a BPC power outage which affected both their main Gaborone exchanges MSU1 (Megaleng) and MSU2 (in G'West). BTC inform us that Kgatleng, Kweneng and Ngwaketse were also affected. By their reckoning the incident lasted from 09h10 until 11h00.

Tue Feb 7th 12:10 It appears that Botswana Telecoms had a major systems outage from 10h18 until 10h55. There was no internet access, their cellular network was down and we couldn't even contact them via landlines. Their problems started at 09:36 although at that time they restored service within 20 mins. We still have no more information about this.

Thu Dec 8th 14:50 Right now it looks as if BTC have fixed their problem. Unfortunately we still don't know what caused the problem or how it was resolved.

Thu Dec 8th 14:43 It appears that the problem with ADSL access to the Internet started at 12:46. We have been unable to get information from BTC. Email services via our network are unaffected.

Thu Dec 8th 14:15 Internet access appears to be down for many, if not all, ADSL customers. Access to local Internet Service Providers via the Botswana Internet Exchange (BINX) is unaffected. We have notified BTC who, as yet, do not know the cause of the problem.
Customers connecting to the internet via our wireless, leased line or dialup connections are unaffected.

Wed Dec 7th 10:45 As far as we can tell BPC power in Broadhurst is now stable.

Wed Dec 7th 09:50 Unfortunately BPC are still having problems in Broadhurst.

Wed Dec 7th 09:30 BPC finally restored 3-phase power in Broadhurst at about 09:05 this morning. Any wireless customers still experiencing problems should please contact our help desk on 391-8444.

Tue Dec 6th 19:35 The power problems in Broadhurst are due to the replacement of a BPC transformer. Power has been off since 10h30 while our backup supply expired 3 hours later. Another deadline for restoration of services, 19h00, has unfortunately passed without event.

Tue Dec 6th 18:55 Internet access may be slow due to a failure of one of BTC's RSA links

Tue Dec 6th 16:55 Many customers are still affected by the continuing power outage in Broadhurst. We are unable to get any information about the problem there as BPC's number are either busy or not being answered.

Tue Dec 6th 14:50 An extended power cut in Broadhurst is now affecting our wireless services to parts of central Gaborone, Broadhurst and Phakalane. BPC hope to have restored power by 15h30. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Mon 5th Dec 2011 17:05 BTC have advised us of planned maintenance which will affect various digital services to the following areas on the dates specified. We believe that the services affected will include Voice and data services offered over ISDN as well as the public switched telephone network.

     06/12/11 00h01 - 02h00 Maun
     06/12/11 00h01 - 02h00 Palapye
     06/12/11 00h01 - 02h00 Phikwe
     07/12/11 00h01 - 02h00 Francistown

Thu 1st Dec 2011 09:09 BTC have corrected their routes and traffic is now flowing correctly to our network. Any customers still experiencing problems should pls contact our helpdesk on 391-8444.

Thu 1st Dec 2011 08:55 The connection problem to our network appears to be related to a routing problem at BTC. We have notified them.

Thu 1st Dec 2011 07:15 Many customers are currently unable to access our network for mail and other services. We are investigating.

Fri 25th Nov 2011 17:30 Access to websites hosted on the Government of Botswana network has been extremely slow since the PSLE (Primary School Leaving Exam) results were published at 13h00 today. Email to gov.bw, however, has not been delayed.

Sat 12th Nov 2011 14:40 A problem that was preventing some of our customers from sending mail since 12h07 has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thu 10th Nov 2011 16:38 It took longer than we expected but BTC have finally resolved the issue with their rogue DNS server. ADSL performance should be back to normal now.

Thu 10th Nov 2011 09:25 ADSL customers have been experiencing various problems including having to repeatedly issue refresh commands to their browsers in order to access webpages. The problem is that one of the BTC DNS servers that BTC announces to ADSL customers is not answering DNS queries for non-local domains. We are notifying BTC of this.
For the technically-minded amongst you, depending on your network infrastructure, you may be able to work around the problem. Using DHCP BTC announces two DNS servers, 168.167.253.20 and 168.167.252.242. The first one, 168.167.253.20 is faulty. If you configure your PC's network settings to use 168.167.252.242 and 168.167.168.34 (or just 168.167.252.242) then the problem may go away.
If the above sounds complicated then please hold on for a fix from BTC which shouldn't take too long.

Tue 8th Nov 2011 17:15 BTC seems to have restored proper routing to our network. Hopefully there will be no more disturbances.

Tue 8th Nov 2011 15:17 It appears that BTC has also lost access to our network from theirs via the BINX.

Tue 8th Nov 2011 14:59 Woops - it looks like in fixing the routing of our internet connectivity BTC has broken ADSL access to our network.

Tue 8th Nov 2011 14:35 BTC have just finally restored our internet connectivity. There will be some residual delays in mail handling as the various servers across the internet gradually flush their mail queues. We are cautiously optimistic that all services have been restored. Our phone lines also came back a short while ago.

Tue 8th Nov 2011 13:03 BTC are still struggling to restore internet connectivity to us. Although our customers can reach our network and, for example, send and receive mail, we cannot forward their outgoing mail neither can we be reached from non-local mail servers wishing to send mail to us.

Tue 8th Nov 2011 11:21 A few minutes ago BTC restored connectivity for themselves to the BINX. ADSL customers can now connect to our network to send + receive mail, browse local websites etc. At the time of writing we do not yet have internet connectivity so leased line and wireless customers still have only local service.

Tue 8th Nov 2011 09:22 == UPDATE ON BTC OUTAGE ==
BTC "planned work" at their exchange caused brief outage for ADSL, leased lines and Metro-ethernet 23h20 7/11/11
Services restored albeit at a reduced level until 01h00 8/11/11 when all ADSL, leased-line and Metro-Ethernet connectivity to our network was lost
BTC connectivity to the Botswana Internet Exchange (BINX) is provided by Metro-Ethernet bandwidth and so has been down since 01:00 a.m. This primarily affects ADSL customers who will be unable to reach their ISPs for mail and other services if they are peering through the BINX.
Some ISPs use BTC leased lines to connect to the BINX and their links will also be down.
The problem is associated with BTC's MSU-2 exchange in G'West and seems to be affecting ADSL customers served from that exchange as well as voice lines.
At 08:45 BTC informed us that they may have to reverse the changes they were making and that the outage might last another 1.5 hours.

Tue 8th Nov 2011 08:10 Correction - connectivity via the BINX also was lost at 01h00. BTC say they are working to restore services that were not restored after their planned work.
To add further confusion our phone lines are also down. We do not know if this is linked to BTC's broader network problems. Customers who need to contact us are urged to call our Francistown office on 241-8686. They will be in a position to relay messages to us.

Tue 8th Nov 2011 07:48 We have had no metro-ethernet connectivity since 1:00 am this morninig. BTC say they were doing some maintenance but have no further information. Our leased-line and wireless customers will have no internet connectivity however they can reach local sites through the Botswana Internet Exchange (BINX). Our ADSL customers can also reach us via the BINX.
We note that ADSL connectivity was down briefly starting at 23:20 last night.

Wed 2nd Nov 2011 11:18 BTC has just restored our Gaborone dial-in lines. All systems are now working normally.

Tue 1st Nov 2011 15:55 Our Gaborone dial-in number is currently down. BTC have identified that the problem is at their exchange but it may not be fixed until tomorrow. In the meantime customers using dialup can connect via our POPs in Francistown (241-5899), Maun (686-3105) and Phikwe (261-3947). We apologize for the inconvenience.

Tue 1st Nov 2011 10:40 Some of our ADSL customers have been unable to access their mail and other services on our network. It appears that BTC has, once again, assigned a new range of IP addresses to ADSL customers without notifying the members of BINX. Traffic to our network is now being routed correctly however the servers and networks of other active BINX members will remain unreachable until they manually update their routers.

Tue 25th Oct 2011 21:22 There is a power cut that has been affecting a large part of Gaborone West since 21h00. We are running on backup power but do not expect any interruption to Gaborone-based services. We note that there is also a power cut in Francistown that is affecting our Wide Area Network links to F'Town and Phikwe.

Mon 24th Oct 2011 11:21 Once again there seem to be problems with BTC's ADSL network. Connectivity appears to be going up and down.

Mon 24th Oct 2011 00:00 BTC's network has been stable since 19:00

Sun 23rd Oct 2011 18:57 Woops - BTC's Metro Ethernet went down again at 18:51. We will leave our status page at Red until their network is again stable.

Sun 23rd Oct 2011 18:33 BTC's network seems to have been restored at about 18h07. As far as we can tell their network is now fully operational.

Sun 23rd Oct 2011 17:55 It appears that BTC has been experiencing some major network problems since 16h37. Although they seem to be pointing the finger at their G'West exchange it looks as if other areas are also affected. Internet connectivity as well as local ADSL connectivity and Metro-Ethernet services have been down for over an hour. BTC is investigating.

Thu 20th Oct 2011 09:48 It appears that mail to addresses at gov.bw is being delayed due to problems at gov.bw which appear to have started yesterday afternoon. We see that a small amount of mail is now trickling through but customers should expect to receive warning messages that the mail has been delayed. Pls do not resend your mail, your original mail will be delivered as gov.bw resolve their problems.

Tue 18th Oct 2011 08:32 As far as we can tell the last of BTC's services was restored at 08:25.

Tue 18th Oct 2011 07:55 We note that Blackberry data services are also unavailable presumably because they require BTC international bandwidth.
Locally-hosted domains and websites such as www.info.bw are reachable over BTC's ADSL, leased lines and metro-ethernet and over our wireless and dialup networks. Please note that non-BW domains can only be resolved if your DNS provider holds records for them.

Tue 18th Oct 2011 07:45 All BTC internet access is currently down. BTC suffered a power failure at 06:10 and are currently trying to restore services. Local ADSL services have been up and down

Mon 17th Oct 2011 10:56 A problem that was preventing customers in a specific IP range from accessing our network has been resolved. We apologise for the inconvenience.

Fri 14th Oct 2011 16:05 We are cautiously optimistic that the problem affecting ADSL customers pulling their mail has been resolved. The culprit, if convicted, was a router on our network and not under BTC's control. We are grateful for BTC's cooperation in investigating the problem.

Fri 14th Oct 2011 10:55 We have no more real news about the problem affecting some ADSL customers mail retrieval except to say that BTC is still carrying out tests to discover the cause.

Thu 13th Oct 2011 16:50 The problem many ADSL users are experiencing accessing their mail continues. BTC have completed some tests so hopefully they are closer to a solution. We remind our customers that they have the option of using our webmail (follow the link on http://www.info.bw ) if they are too frustrated with the unreliability of POPping their mail. This is, however, a much more awkward alternative.

Thu 13th Oct 2011 12:17 We are waiting for BTC to complete their tests to investigate the problem with POP mail access from ADSL. It looks, however, that the affected customers have all been allocated IP addresses in specific ranges (168.167.176.0-168.167.191.255 and perhaps one further range).

Thu 13th Oct 2011 10:53 We are still working with BTC to investigate the mail retrieval problems affecting some of our customers. It appears that only POP mail from some ADSL IP ranges is affected. Customers affected are requested to contact our help desk on 391-8444 so that we can verify that their ADSL is functioning properly before we eventually close this call.

Thu 13th Oct 2011 08:40 It appears that the problem affecting customers retrieving mail from us has returned. We are investigating and will update this page as we get more information.

Wed 12th Oct 2011 18:02 As far as we can tell the problem preventing customers on BTC's ADSL network from accessing our mail servers efficiently has been resolved. No changes were made to our network and we are not aware of any changes that BTC may have made although we escalated the problem to them. Any customers still affected are requested to contact our help desk on 391-8444 for assistance.

Wed 12th Oct 2011 15:35 We have received reports from ADSL customers of slow speeds accessing our mail servers. We are investigating but we request affected customers to call our help desk on 391-8444 so that we can gather some more information and also notify you once the problem is resolved.
For the record - No our services are not affected by the outage affecting the Blackberry network.

Tue 11th Oct 2011 17:35 We apologize for a problem that prevented customers with addresses at info.bw from accessing their POP mail since 16h40. All our services are now back to normal.

Wed 5th Oct 2011 15:30 There is no power in G'West. BTC say this is due to load shedding but they have no idea when power will be restored. We are running on backup power but do not expect any interruption to services.

Tue 4th Oct 2011 14:44 We have observed heavy packet loss contacting most non-local sites from ADSL. BTC have been informed.

Mon 3rd Oct 2011 17:22 Our Gaborone dial-in lines were restored by BTC at 16h00. We sincerely hope that the problem has now been permanently resolved.

Mon 3rd Oct 2011 08:50 Unfortunately our Gaborone dial-in lines continue to give us problems. Affected customers should please use the numbers listed below until BTC has repaired the lines.

Sat 1st Oct 2011 13:30 Our Gaborone Dial-in lines are now working.

Sat 1st Oct 2011 12:45 Our Gaborone Dial-in lines are, once again, out of order. BTC have been informed. We apologize for the inconvenience and request affected customers, while BTC is addressing the problem, to please use our other dial-in numbers in Francistown (241-5899), Maun (686-3105) or Phikwe (261-3947).

Thu 29th Sep 2011 15:50 Over the past few days ADSL customers have experienced a variety of problems including problems accessing Banking sites and difficulties with VPN connectivity.
It appears that BTC traffic-shaping may be the cause. We encourage customers experiencing problems to contact our help desk (391-8444, support@info.bw) so that we can investigate and, if necessary, escalate the matter with BTC.

Thu 22nd Sep 2011 16:44 BTC have once again (and much more quickly than last time) restored our Gaborone dialin lines.

Thu 22nd Sep 2011 16:28 BTC had restored our Gaborone dialin lines but they have since gone down again. We have notified BTC.

Wed 21st Sep 2011 09:30 Our Gaborone dialin numbers are not working. We are informing BTC. Until service is restored we request our customers to please use our Francistown, Maun or Phikwe numbers; 241-5899, 686-3105 and 261-3947 respectively. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Fri 16th Sep 2011 09:15 There seem to be major problems with BTC's voice network and numerous customers have no voice service. As our Gaborone lines are not working we encourage customers to contact us by email - support@info.bw or to call our Francistown office on 241-8684, our Maun office on 686-4145 or our Phikwe office on 262-2800. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Tue 13th Sep 2011 10:50 BTC have notified us of planned work that will affect their services from midnight until 04h00 on 15th and 16th Sep. The location of the work will be Palapye and Mahalapye respectively but it appears that the impact may also include links to F'Town, Phikwe, Letlhakane and Lobatse. We presume that the affects will be limited to data services i.e. voice traffic should be unaffected.

Wed 7th Sep 2011 14:16 BTC have confirmed that an IGP routing problem was the cause of their earlier outage. All customers should be able to connect normally now.

Wed 7th Sep 2011 12:29 It appears that ADSL connectivity was restored at about 12:15. We were in touch with BTC while they were investigating but we currently do not know if the problem has been solved permanently.

Wed 7th Sep 2011 11:51 We still haven't got any information from BTC about their current outage. As far as we can tell Metro ethernet and leased lines are unaffected i.e. the problem is confined to ADSL. It appears that things started going wrong at about 10:40 this morning.
We remind our customers that we provide a backup dialup service for events such as this. All of our ADSL customers can dial in to us and we make provision for corporate SMTP customers so that they also can retrieve and send mail.
Pls contact our helpdesk on 391-8444 for assistance in configuring modems etc.

Wed 7th Sep 2011 11:25 We have becaome aware of a major ADSL outage. We are contacting BTC for more information.

Wed 31st Aug 2011 15:20 The BTC outage lasted from 14:20 to 14:30. As far as we can tell it affected metro-ethernet bandwidth and connectivity to the Botswana Internet Exchange (BINX). ADSL bandwidth was unaffected although local websites, mail servers etc would have been unreachable.

Wed 31st Aug 2011 14:28 A few minutes ago we lost all connectivity to BTC's network. BTC have no explanation as to what has happened.

Wed 24th Aug 2011 17:55 We have identified 3 additional IP ranges that BTC have newly assigned to ADSL customers and which were not being successfully routed to our network. We have enabled access for those ranges and we have informed BTC. Affected customers would have had internet access but would have been unable to connect to our servers to browse local websites, send and retrieve mail etc.

Tue 23rd Aug 2011 08:00 It appears that almost all of our ADSL customers are now receiving ADSL service as normal. We are returning our status indicator to green.

Mon 22nd Aug 2011 07:55 Many of our ADSL customers are now back online. We urge those who are still without connectivity to contact our help desk so that we can verify if their BTC exchange has already been converted.

Fri 19th Aug 2011 17:43 Some of our customers have had their their ADSL connectivity restored but many more, including some in the catchment area of MSU1 (which was scheduled for reconnection between 17th and 18th Aug), remain offline.
We have identified further IP ranges which BTC has started allocating to ADSL customers and which were not being properly routed by BTC. Any customers who have internet connectivity but cannot access their mail should pls contact our help desk in 391-8444 or 241-8686.
Many of our switchboard lines are still out of order and we apologize to customers who are unable to phone us. If you pass your details to our F'Town office (241-8686) then we will call you back.

Fri 19th Aug 2011 10:49 It appears that some ADSL customers who came back online overnight have almost full internet access but can't connect to our network. Preliminary investigations suggest a routing problem at BTC. We have solved the problem with a kludge for customers with IP addresses within 168.167.217.0/24 and we are notifying BTC.

Thu 18th Aug 2011 08:38 We see that some customers served by BTC's MSU1 Exchange (Megaleng) came back online for a brief period before midnight last night. We have posted some instructions for Post Office customers to facilitate retrieval of their SMTP mail.

Wed 17th Aug 2011 18:48 BTC have informed us of their plans to restore service to ADSL customers. The entire process is set to take up to 8 days. Please see this timetable which details which exchanges will be addressed and on which dates.

Wed 17th Aug 2011 09:26 BTC informs us that there is no change in the status of their ADSL network i.e. major problems countrywide. We urge our customers to contact us if they need assistance as per the posts below.

Tue 16th Aug 2011 18:08 We regret that there is no news from BTC about their continuing ADSL outage. From our record we see that the worst- affected customers lost connectivity shortly after 07h30 on Sun Aug 14. They were reconnected for less than an hour on Mon 15th and have been down since 11h50 on Mon Aug 15.
Customers interested in wireless, leased-line, satellite or other connectivity are encouraged to contact our sales team on 391-8444 or by email at sales@btg.bw.
Customers, including corporate customers with post office accounts, needing assistance in downloading mail should please contact our support team using the above means.

Tue 16th Aug 2011 16:36 BTC have restored our dialup lines but we see that the BTC exchange lines to our office PABX (391-8444) are going up and down. We apologize to customers experiencing difficulties while trying to call our office. Please feel free to call our Francistown office on 241-8686 or to email our support desk mailto:support@info.bw.

Tue 16th Aug 2011 08:15 BTC is still experiencing major problems with their ADSL network. Despite some reconnections many customers have been offline since Monday morning. BTC have no forecast as to when services will be normalised.

Mon 15th Aug 2011 16:51 We have observed that although BTC got parts of their ADSL network back up again they have since gone down again. BTC confirm that they are still working on the problem but have no timeline as to when service will be fully restored.
All ADSL customers are provided with a dial-up account that they can use to access their email. Please contact our help desk on 391-8444 if you require help in configuring a dialup.
Customers are also advised that they are welcome to use the cyber-cafes in our Francistown and Gaborone offices where our staff can provide additional assistance.
Finally we remind our customers that they can access their mail via our webmail interface

Mon 15th Aug 2011 08:14 BTC confirm that they have experienced an outage affecting ADSL customers from before 5:00 am today. They are unaware of the outage yesterday. We advise all affected customers to contact our help desk on 391-8444 so that we can ensure that every customer has their service restored.

Mon 15th Aug 2011 08:00 BTC have had a major problem with ADSL since yesterday. Many of our customers are unable to connect.

Fri 12th Aug 2011 16:10 Customers dialing into our Gaborone POP are being told that "the number you have dialed is busy" even though we have many lines free. BTC have been informed.

Fri 5th Aug 2011 18:44 Regrettably we have had limited success circumventing the standardbank.co.za DNS issue using the hosts file method below. We hope that BTC will succeed in resolving the issue, failing which we request you to please contact our helpdesk on 391-8444 so that we can try other measures to provide you with access to standardbank.co.za. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Fri 5th Aug 2011 17:08 Further to the last message - again for the technophiles - On a Windows machine the hosts file will be at systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts (*not* hosts.sam). On Linux it should be under /etc/hosts and on a Mac it will be under /private/etc/hosts

Fri 5th Aug 2011 16:55 We have become aware of a problem whereby ADSL customers cannot reach www.standardbank.co.za from ADSL connections. Upon investigation it appears that the problem is related to DNS, possibly at BTC or at MTN in RSA. Technologically savvy customers can hopefully get around the problem by creating records in their 'hosts' file supplying the required IP addresses. We have included the addresses in this file For those for whom this is gobbledygook you had better wait for BTC to resolve the issue. We have reported it to them.

Fri 5th Aug 2011 08:40 Telecoms have advised us of planned work to be carried out which will affect ADSL customers connecting via Letlhakane. Service may be affected between midnight on 5th Aug and 04h00 on 6th Aug.

Wed 27th Jul 2011 09:00 Yesterday we experienced several BPC power failures. Another one started today at 08:40. We are running on backup power which we can maintain indefinitely, RSA's striking fuel workers permitting.
Access to our network may, however, be affected by third parties suppliers that our customers rely on.

Fri 15th Jul 2011 09:10 There is a power failure which has affected parts of G'West since 08:41. We are running on emergency power but do not anticipate any interruption to our services.
We can't give any further information about the extent of the power outage as we can't get any response from any BPC numbers.

Tue 5th Jul 2011 16:43 BTC have also notified us of work to be carried out from 11h00 to 14h00 on both Sat 9th July 2011 and Sun 10th July 2011 that will affect all ADSL customers in Matsiloje.

Tue 5th Jul 2011 16:40 BTC have notified us of planned work on their ADSL infrastructure that will affect customers connected to their Mahalapye exchange from 17h00 to 18h00 on Wed 6th July 2011. Thu 30th Jun 2011 07:54 We have confirmed that the problem in the Kgale area is a BPC power outage not an ADSL issue.

Thu 30th Jun 2011 07:45 We can see that at approx 05:48 this morning we lost ADSL connectivity to many customers in Kgale area. We do not yet know if this is a BTC ADSL issue or possibly BPC-related.

Wed 29th Jun 2011 11:46 We note that burs.org.bw. is also unreachable as a consequence of the gov.bw. dns outage.

Wed 29th Jun 2011 11:18 We have contacted DIT about their DNS outage. They have confirmed that they have a major network problem and do not know when it will be resolved.

Wed 29th Jun 2011 11:08 For several days we have observed intermittent problems with the gov.bw name servers. They are all currently offline hence no email can be delivered to, nor accepted from, gov.bw addresses. Other gov.bw services may also be unavailable while their problems persist.

Mon 27th Jun 2011 08:05 BTC has had serious problems with their data links to RSA since 03:00 today. Internet connectivity should be normal but customer leased lines will be affectred.

Fri 24th Jun 2011 11:08 There are still a few ADSL customers who are unable to connect to us since last night. BTC was carrying out maintenance on their network last night which should only have affected customers connecting to MSU1 (Megaleng). We request affected customers to power off and on their ADSL modems. If, after a few minutes, there is still no internet access then pls call our help desk on 391-8444.

Fri 24th Jun 2011 10:48 We have identified the issue with some ADSL customers connecting to us. There is a routing problem at BTC. We have made a temporary fix until such time as BTC updates their BGP.

Fri 24th Jun 2011 08:55 we see that quite a few of our ADSL customers have been unable to reach us since approx 18:52 yesterday. We are investigating the problem.

Tue 7th Jun 2011 17:19 It appears that BTC restored ADSL connectivity in the Kgale area at 17:09. (The timing of my call to BTC was a happy coincidence!)

Tue 7th Jun 2011 17:08 Although BTC restored ADSL services in the Kgale area at about 13:52 today, we see that the same area went down again at about 16:37. The same customers who were affected by the earlier outage are again offline. We have notified BTC.

Tue 7th Jun 2011 08:31 BTC have confirmed the problems with ADSL and they are working to restore services. Affected customers who would like to be notified once service is restored may contact our helpdesk on 391-8444.

Tue 7th Jun 2011 07:58 It appears that BTC has a problem with ADSL coverage in the G'West/Kgale area. We are trying to confirm with BTC.

Wed 25th May 2011 11:24 We note that BPC's power outage ended at 11:22.

Wed 25th May 2011 09:20 There is a BPC power failure which has been affecting part of Gaborone West since before 09:00. We are running on backup power but we do not anticipate any interruption to services. We cannot speak, however, for 3rd party providers who are responsible for their own redundancy and backup power provision.

Thur 12th May 2011 10:13 We still have some customers who have had no ADSL service since BTC's upgrade on Monday night. We request any affected customers to please turn off their ADSL modem, wait a few moments then turn it on again. If internet connectivity is not restored then pls call our helpdesk on 391-8444 so that we can investigate further.

Tues 10th May 2011 08:10 It appears that following work BTC was carrying out on its network last night that all ADSL links have been reset. In some cases it appears that turning off the ADSL modem and turning it back on again will restore connectivity. If you have no internet access over ADSL then that is our advice. Affected customers may call our help desk on 391-8444 if they would like to be notified once BTC has sorted this out.

Mon 9th May 2011 14:40 We have had numerous reports of customers being unable to connect to BTC's ADSL system. BTC have confirmed that they have a problem with one of their DHCP servers. As yet there is no information as to when the problem will be resolved.
It may be prudent for customers to avoid turning off their ADSL modems until BTC have fixed their server.

Thu 21st Apr 2011 18:35 We have identified a problem with Botswana Telecom's DNS that is causing problems resolving local domain names. We have notified BTC.

Wed 6th Apr 2011 13:35 There is a problem preventing some of our dialup customers from logging on to our network and affected customers are requested to contact our helpdesk for assistance. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Wed 6th Apr 2011 13:10 BTC have informed us that they have resolved the DNS connectivity problem affecting ADSL customers.

Wed 6th Apr 2011 09:45 BTC have acknowledged that the problems ADSL customers are facing are due to planned work they were carrying out last night. We have no further information from BTC. ADSL customers who are unable to browse non-local sites are encouraged to contact our help desk for help in adjusting their DNS settings as mentioned below.

Wed 6th Apr 2011 08:55 We have observed that some ADSL customers are unable to browse the internet. We can see that the two DNS servers (168.167.253.20 and 168.167.252.242) that BTC is publishing to those ADSL customers are failing to answer queries for non-local domains. We are trying to notify BTC of this. In the meantime affected customers can use other BTC DNS servers such as 168.167.168.34 or 168.167.253.20.

Customers who desire help in making these changes should contact our help desk on 391-8444. We will continue to try to apprise BTC of the situation.

Tue 22nd Mar 2011 10:10 mail.info.bw is now accessible. We apologize for the interruption to service.

Tue 22nd Mar 2011 09:55 Customers are unable to access one of our POP mail servers - mail.info.bw We are investigating the problem and apologize for the inconvenience.

Fri 18th Mar 2011 10:25 BTC have resolved the problem that prevented access to our network. We are still waiting to hear what caused the problem.

Fri 18th Mar 2011 10:05 Internet access to and from our network via our BTC metro-ethernet link is down. We have connectivity to and from ADSL customers via our link to the Botswana Internet Exchange (BINX). We are trying to investigate this with BTC.

Thu 17th Mar 2011 11:10 BTC confirmed that they had a problem with their distribution router which has now been resolved.

Thu 17th Mar 2011 11:05 It appears that BTC is experiencing some trouble with its international links. Traffic has been intermittent recently. We are trying to contact BTC.

Mon 14th Mar 2011 10:10 Our ADSL customers were unable to access their mail for circa 15 mins. The problem has been resolved and we apologize for the inconvenience.

Thu 10th Mar 2011 10:39 Our WAN link to Maun, which had been down due to a frame-relay issue at BTC, has now been restored.

Mon 28th Feb 2011 16:30 BTC briefly lost internet connectivity a short while ago. Service has been restored. We will update this page if there is more info from BTC.

Wed 23rd Feb 2011 13:50 Some of our corporate customers would have been unable to receive new mail for several hours last night. We apologize for the inconvenience and for the late posting of this message.

Wed 16th Feb 2011 12:39 It appears that BTC's problems have been resolved.

Wed 16th Feb 2011 12:33 BTC is apparently unaware that they have a serious problem. We have confirmed with other operators that International Private Leased circuits as well as ADSL are affected. We suspect that there may be an issue at BTC's MSU-2 exchange however we are also observing difficulties reaching BTC's network from the UK.

Wed 16th Feb 2011 12:11 It appears that all BTC internet access is down. This includes ADSL as well as Metro Ethernet. We are trying to get an explanation from BTC.

Thu 3rd Feb 2011 08:24 A problem preventing some dialup customers acessing their mail has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Wed 2nd Feb 2011 15:50 We see that ns1.btc.bw is again answering queries.

Wed 2nd Feb 2011 15:04 We note that currently there is only one name server capable of answering recursive queries for the dot-BW domain (vpsm.btc.bw 168.167.253.21). BW domains are still accessible from the outside world however, if the remaining server goes offline then local websites and domains will become unreachable and there may be other, negative implications.
For more information please see Botswana DNS

Wed 2nd Feb 2011 14:25 Once again we have observed that there is an issue handing off traffic from Neotel to MTN in South Africa. This means that once again many sites in RSA are unreachable from our network. BTC have been informed.

Thu 27th Jan 2011 16:45 Our WAN link to Maun is down due to a power cut affecting much of the town. Affected dialup customers can dial in through our Gaborone POP on 316-6175. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Fri 21st Jan 2011 16:05 We had hoped that ADSL customers who were unable to access our network would have had their access restored by midnight last night. Unfortunately this is not the case. Affected customers are requested to call our helpdesk so that we can get BTC's help to restore full access. Before calling us please visit this website: http://www.whatismyip.com/ and record the IP address displayed. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Wed 19th Jan 2011 16:45 BTC has allocated a new range of IP addresses to ADSL customers. Unfortunately customers receiving these new IPs will be unable to access our network. We are liaising with BTC to resolve the issue.

Wed 19th Jan 2011 10:58 Our WAN links to Francistown and Phikwe are down due to a power failure affecting central Francistown. There is no news, as yet, as to when power the problem will have been fixed. Affected dialup customers can connect through our Gaborone POP on 316-6175. Please contact our help desk on 391-8444 if you would like to be notified once BPC has restored power.

Tue 18th Jan 2011 15:35 BTC have notified us of planned works that will interrupt all ADSL customers served by their RLU12 exchange in Broadhurst. The outage is scheduled to last 4hrs from midnight until 04h00 on Wed 19th Jan.

Tue 19th Jan 2011 12:00 BTC restored our Maun WAN link at 11:43 today.

Mon 17th Jan 2011 08:05 Access to our POP in Maun is down due to a power cut affecting a large part of Maun. BPC expect the outage to continue until this afternoon. Customers may dial in through Gaborone on 316-6175.

Fri 14th Jan 2011 11:00 The routing issue affecting two of BTC's ADSL switches has been resolved.

Fri 14th Jan 2011 10:10 We have noticed that two of BTC's ADSL switches are unreachable from our network. We are trying to notify BTC. Several of our Post Office clients are unable to retrieve their mail.

Mon 10th Jan 2011 21:40 BTC finished restoring ADSL services at 19:35. Unfortunately customers will again probably have to reset their ADSL modems to get internet access.

Mon 10th Jan 2011 17:54 Once again it looks like most, if not all, of BTC's ADSL network is down. We have notified BTC.

Mon 10th Jan 2011 14:00 BTC has restored ADSL services but customers may need to turn off their ADSL modems and then turn them on again in order to get internet access.

Mon 10th Jan 2011 11:44 It appears that all ADSL services are down. We have notified BTC.

Mon 6th Dec 2010 13:33 We are running on backup power due to a power cut affecting a large part of Gaborone West. We do not anticipate any service interruptions but we cannot answer for third-party infrastructure outside of our control.

Mon 6th Dec 2010 08:32 BTC have advised us of a planned outage affecting all voice and data traffic passing through their MSU1 exchange (Megaleng - Khama Crescent). The work is planned for 12th Dec from 00h01 until 01h00.

Tue 30th Nov 2010 09:43 It appears that BTC have fixed their routing problems since 09:23. We are cautiously optimistic that traffic is now flowing normally. Any customers still experiencing problems are encouraged to contact our help desk on 391-8444 for assistance.

Tue 30th Nov 2010 08:10 A correction to the last message: some ADSL customers can access our network normally but many have restricted access and cannot reach some of our servers. In particular some customers can retrieve (POP) their mail but cannot send. We have notified BTC and are trying to help them to localise the affected net blocks.

Tue 30th Nov 2010 07:50 Some ADSL customers can reach our network but most of them can't.

Mon 29th Nov 2010 20:15 BTC has resolved the problem affecting our internet access. Any dialup, leased-line or wireless customers still experiencing difficulties should please notify our help desk on 391-8444. The routing issue with ADSL traffic remains. BTC say they are investigating.

Mon 29th Nov 2010 16:50 We are experiencing severe difficulty reaching many internet sites. We cannot reach any of our ADSL customers. The cause of the problem is routing issues at BTC.

Mon 29th Nov 2010 10:49 Woops - it looks like the problem getting to www.gov.bw from ADSL is back again. We have notified the Dept of IT.

Mon 29th Nov 2010 08:57 The problem accessing gov.bw websites has been resolved. The cause was a routing issue at BTC.

Fri 26th Nov 2010 16:25 It appears that all gov.bw websites have been unreachable from ADSL bandwidth for the last few days. We have informed the Dept of IT at gov.bw.

Wed 24th Nov 2010 15:26 Our Metro-Ethernet link was restored at 15:24 - we have no information as yet as to the cause of the problem.

Wed 24th Nov 2010 15:12 Our Metro-Ethernet link which carries much of our leased-line, wireless and dialup traffic has just gone down. This may be related to a fibre cut yesterday which affected a number of links to the Botswana Internet Exchange (BINX) on our premises and which forced BTC to re-route some of the traffic. We have notified BTC.

Mon 22nd Nov 2010 18:27 BTC have just informed us of emergency works that will be carried out tonight at 20h00 and will interrupt unspecified services (probably all internet access) for a period of 1 hour.

Tue 16th Nov 2010 18:17 Google is back. We don't know what was the cause of the problem.

Tue 16th Nov 2010 17:40 We note that google.com is unreachable from BTC-assigned IP addresses. We have notified BTC.

Wed 10th Nov 2010 16:30 It appears that Neotel resolved their routing issues in RSA before the evening of 9th Nov. We have confirmed that internet banking and other services are no longer adversely affected.

Tues 9th Nov 2010 12:55 We are operating on backup power because of the power cut affecting most of Gaborone. We do not anticipate any problems but we cannot guarantee continuity of service from third party infrastructure e.g. dialup lines etc.

Tues 9th Nov 2010 11:30 Once again it is impossible to reach many RSA-hosted domains including any hosted by iafrica.com. Unfortunately this includes some of the Botswana banks which are hosted in South Africa. The cause is a routing problem in RSA with BTC's upstream peers. We have notified BTC.

Tues 2nd Nov 2010 17:50 BTC have warned us planned work which will affect most internet access countrywide from 00h01 until 04h00 on 11th Nov.

Mon 18th Oct 2010 16:20 BTC have just informed us of work they are planning on their MSU-1 and MSU-2 exchanges in Gaborone. The work will be carried out between 01h00 and 03h00 tomorrow morning 19th Oct and it will affect internet access for most of our leased-line, wireless and dialup customers.

Thur 14th Oct 2010 08:06 Internet access via BTC bandwidth is very slow. BTC confirn that they have lost one of their international links.

Tues 12th Oct 2010 14:20 We are running on backup power due to a power cut affecting a large part of G'West. We do not anticipate any service problems however some services supplied by third parties eg BTC, may be affected.
BPC expect the outage to last 30 mins

Tues 12th Oct 2010 11:00 We have been warned by BTC of planned maintenance that will affect all ADSL traffic through their RLU12 exchange in Broadhurst. The interruption will last from 23h00 on Fri 15th until 03h00 the following day.

Fri 8th Oct 2010 16:55 BTC has notfied us of scheduled work which will affect all BTC-supplied internet access i.e. leased line, metro-ethernet and ADSL from 23h00 8th Oct extending, possibly, until 04h00 9th Oct.

Wed 29th Sep 2010 07:28 Our WAN link to Maun is down due to a power cut affecting part of the town centre. There is no new from BPC when the fault will be rectified.

Sat 25th Sep 2010 21:55 BTC restored their link at 15:17. Normal mail access from ADSL is now possible. Customers who switched to the alternate IP addresses are advised to revert to the old settings for speed of access.

Sat 25th Sep 2010 14:00 BTC's ADSL 'backhaul' that brings ADSL customers' traffic to our premises is down. This means ADSL customers are unable to connect to our webservers and mailservers. Customers connecting via leased-line, dialup, wireless or via other ISPs are unaffected.
Until BTC have rectified the fault customers can send mail by connecting to one of our servers on the IP address 193.220.23.4 Info customers can 'POP' their mail from 193.220.23.7 and Global customers can 'POP' their mail from 193.220.23.36. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thu 16th Sep 2010 08:45 BPC resolved their F'Town power problem at 08:40 and our WAN links have been restored.

Thu 16th Sep 2010 08:05 Our WAN links to Francistown & Phikwe are down due to a BPC power outage in F'Town. There is no news as to when power will be restored.

Wed 15th Sep 2010 14:37 BTC have advised us of planned works that will interrupt traffic to Maun for up to 2 hours from 23h00 19th Sep.

Tue 14th Sep 2010 07:55 Our WAN link to Maun will be down from 07:30 until 14:00 today due to a BPC power outage in central Maun.

Fri 10th Sep 2010 16:48 We see that one of the gov.bw mail exchangers is now accepting mail, albeit extremely slowly. At current rates it will be some hours before all of our mail queues are cleared.

Fri 10th Sep 2010 14:15 We remind our users of the notice below detailing a 30 min voice + data interruption scheduled for midnight on Sun 12th Sep.

Fri 10th Sep 2010 14:06 A problem at the gov.bw domain has prevented all mail from any destinations being delivered to Goverment of Botswana email addresses since Thurs morning. Theoretically there are 3 email servers (MX records) for gov.bw but historically only one of them has ever worked. The admninstators at gov.bw are aware of the problem and are trying to address it.

Wed 8th Sep 2010 17:05 Plese be advised that BTC have warned us of maintenance to be carried out at their MSU1 exchange on the night of 12th Sep. All voice and data services, national and ingternational connecting via their MSU1 exchange will be affected from 00h01 until 00h30.

Tues 7th Sep 2010 17:30 BTC have also warned of scheduled service interruption on 11th Sep 2010. All ADSL via MSU1 will be down for 30 mins and ADSL services from RLU8 will be down for 4 hours. Both interruptions will start at 00h01 11th Sep 2010.

Tues 7th Sep 2010 17:30 We have been advised by BTC of a planned service interruption to all ADSL services via their MSU1 exchange (Megaleng) tonight from 00h01 to 00h30.

Wed 1st Sep 2010 16:45 BTC have also warned of planned testing to be carried out on their Gaborone - Maun link between 23h00 and 01h00 on the night of Mon 6th Sep 2010. They hope that service will not be interrupted during the testing.

Wed 1st Sep 2010 16:40 We have received notification from BTC about planned works that will impact on ADSL services to customers in the Taung area of Gaborone between 21h00 and 23h59 on 2nd Sept 2010.

Mon 31st Aug 2010 08:29 BTC have extended the measures they are using to flexibly route traffic to RSA. Currently mail is flowing normally and all RSA domains appear to be reachable. Customers who experience problems reaching South African destinations are requested to contact our help desk (391-8444, support@info.bw) so that we can investigate further and escalate the issue if necessary.

Mon 30th Aug 2010 17:16 The kludge that BTC has put in place enables access to some domains (including it.bw) but many others are still unreachable. There is no news yet of a permanent solution.

Mon 30th Aug 2010 11:28 BTC has introduced a temporary measure to alleviate the problem accessing MTN's domains in RSA.

Mon 30th Aug 2010 10:30 The saga involving BTC's access to MTN- hosted domains continues. Mostly these are South African domains but there are also some Botswana domains including it.bw as mentioned below. Currently there is no access to those domains neither from BTC's metro-ethernet nor from ADSL bandwidth. BTC are in discussions with their bandwidth providers.

Sun 29th Aug 2010 19:30 BTC seems to have resolved their issue with accessing MTN-hosted domains for ADSL traffic but the problem remains for those purchasing metro-ethernet bandwidth.

Fri 27th Aug 2010 16:10 The problem with accessing MTN -hosted domains in RSA still persists. BTC have no information on progress.

Fri 27th Aug 2010 10:26 As far as we can ascertain a routing problem developed in RSA prior to 10:20 yesterday which affected traffic between NeoTel and MTN. Many RSA domains are unreachable from Botswana. We have asked BTC to take this up with their upstream providers.

Fri 27th Aug 2010 09:51 It appears that a routing or connectivity issue within RSA is preventing access to some domains including some Botswana domains whose DNS records are held in RSA. In particular mail for the it.bw domain cannot be accepted while the name servers at iafrica.com are unreachable.

Fri 27th Aug 2010 09:45 Power was restored in Maun at 08:23

Fri 27th Aug 2010 07:55 Our WAN link to Maun is down due to a power cut affecting the town centre there.

Tue 24th Aug 2010 15:30 At about 14:10 BTC lost their RSA link. It was restored at approx 15:10.

Thu 19th Aug 2010 16:42 A problem in RSA preventing some RSA domains sending mail to us has been resolved.

Wed Aug 18th 07:58 There is a problem affecting the ability of some of our info.bw customers to dial in to our system. Customers affected by this are able to do a "proxy logon" through our Gaborone GIA dialup server. Please call our helpdesk on 391-8444 for assistance.

Tue Aug 17th 10:40 BTC have warned us of a planned outage tonight which will affect ADSL connectivity at their RLU-5 exchange (Mogoditshane). Service will be affected from 23h00 to 23h59

Fri Aug 13th 13:45 BTC restored their RSA link at about 12:45

Fri Aug 13th 11:25 BTC's RSA link is still down. Unfortunately this means that Botswana banking sites which are exclusively hosted in RSA (pls correct me if I'm wrong) are also unreachable. The problem, apparently, is in South Africa.

Fri Aug 13th 09:20 BTC has just lost 2 of their international links. Interent access will be extremely slow while they try to get the services restored.

Fri Aug 6th 2010 11:11 There are more planned ADSL outages notified by BTC as follows:
Francistown/Tonota

    Airport - 00h01 - 05h00 Aug 07th
    Tonota - 00h01 - 05h00 Aug 10th
    Dumela - 00h01 - 03h00 Aug 11th
    Monarch - 00h01 - 05h00 Aug 12th

Wed 4th Aug 2010 16:15 BTC has also advised us of planned works to be carried out in Gaborone on Aug 7th between 00h01 and 04h00 that will affect ADSL customers.

Tue 3rd Aug 2010 14:30 BTC has advised of planned maintenance that will affect ADSL traffic for customer in Phikwe from 00h01 until 02h30 on Sat 7th Aug.

Tue 3rd Aug 2010 10:00 following numerous customer complaints BTC has finally confirmed that ADSL in the Maun area is down due to a fibre cut. Currently there is no estimate when service will be restored. In the interim, affected customers can retrieve their mail by dialing into our Maun POP. Please call our help-desk on 391-8444 if you need help setting up your dialup connection.

Tue 3rd Aug 2010 08:10 The problem affecting customers using another ISP's network to access their BTG mnail has been resolved.

Mon 2nd Aug 2010 11:08 A problem which prevented some local customers accessing their email has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Fri 30th July 2010 13:30 We are investigating a problem whereby some customers, using another ISP's network, are unable to access their mail on our servers. Any affected customers are requested to contact our helpdesk on 391-8444 so that we can gather information and inform then when the problem has been resolved.

Tue 27th July 2010 17:58 BTC announce that they have resolved their ADSL problems in Phakalane.

Tue 27th July 2010 09:30 BTC have confirmed that there is a problem with ADSL access in the Phakalane area. They are working on the problem.

Thu 15th July 2010 16:30 We have identified an issue routing traffic between BTC and ourselves that was preventing some ADSL customers from connecting to our servers. The problem has been resolved and we aplogise for the inconvenience.

Thu 8th July 2010 14:23 We have received notification from BTC that they are planning another complete, country-wide data outage. On this occasion voice traffic will also be affected. The service interruption will affect ADSL, leased lines, International Private Leased Circuits, data links etc. We have confirmed the scope of this outage with BTC and in summary there will be no data or voice traffic locally or internationally from 00h01 until 00h30 on the morning of Sun 11th July 2010.

Mon 5th July 2010 10:10 BTC have once more notified us of planned works in Serowe, Palapye and Mahalapye which will cause temporary disruption to ADSL traffic. The previous works did not alleviate the congestion with ADSL traffic there. Hopefully this time they will be successful. The affected areas and the respective times are as follows:
    Serowe RLU1 - 01h00 - 05h00 July 08th
    Serowe RLU2 - 01h00 - 05h00 July 09th
    Palapye MSU - 01h00 - 03h00 July 07th
    Mahalapye RLU - 01h00 - 05h00 July 10th

Tues 29th June 2010 16:25 BTC have notified us of planned works that will affect ADSL access in Ghanzi from 22h00 on 30th June until 02h00 the following day.

Thu 24th June 2010 11:58 It appears that BTC's bandwidth normalised at 12:22 pm yesterday although we are still seeing some packet loss and slow speeds especially on ADSL.

Wed 23rd June 2010 10:47 BTC have notified us that the cause of their current problems is the planned work that they did this morning. Their RSA link failed to restore and as a consequence there is congestion on their remaining international links. They have no forecast as to when service will be restored.

Wed 23rd June 2010 09:00 We asked BTC for an update on their current transmission problems and they report that almost all international traffic is down.

Wed 23rd June 2010 07:55 BTC lost internet connectivity competely from 04:22 until 05:42. Since then the internet has been very slow and we see major problems reaching RSA sites.
We note the the scheduled outage at midnight does not seem to have happened.

Tues 22nd June 2010 11:55 BTC have informed us of a planned outage that will affect all their international traffic from midnight tonight for 30 minutes. This means that ADSL customers and other internet customers including IPLC customers will have no access to the internet outside of Botswana in that period. Local internet services should be unaffected. BTC state that international voice traffic will also be interrupted.

Mon 21st June 2010 14:30 Our WAN link to F/Town is down. BTC have been informed.

Thu 17th June 2010 14:55 For the record we note that the data outage announced below actually started at 00h00 on Jun 17th and lasted until 05h00.

Thu 10th June 2010 17:15 BTC have warned us of a major outage which will affect all ADSL, leased-lines, frame-relay lines and internet connectivity throughout Botswana from 16th Jun 22h00 until 17th June 04h00. The service interruption is to accomodate work being done on their Uninterruptible Power Supply. We note that customers using the internet to follow the world cup will miss the last 15 mins of the South Africa vs Uruguay match.

Thu 10th June 2010 16:00 BTC have notified us of planned works in Serowe, Palapye and Mahalapye which will cause temporary disruption to ADSL traffic. We trust that the work will alleviate the severe congestion which is slowing ADSL traffic in those areas. The areas affected and the relevant times are as follows:
    Serowe RLU1 - 00h00 - 05h00 Jun 14th
    Serowe RLU2 - 00h00 - 05h00 Jun 16th
    Palapye RLU1 - 00h00 - 05h00 Jun 18th
    Mahalapye RLU1 - 00h00 - 05h00 Jun 20th

Wed 2nd June 2010 17:00 We have received notice from BTC of planned works which will affect ADSL services to Molepolole, Letlhakeng and Metsimotlhabe between 23h00 and 04h00 starting on June 5th.

Tues 1st Jun 2010 08:05 Internet access via BTC has been restored however they have no explanation of the cause of the problem.

Tues 1st Jun 2010 07:59 BTC still has no information as to why there is virtually no internet access for ADSL or Metro-Ethernet customers. We have established that their problem began at exactly 07:15.

Tues 1st Jun 2010 07:40 Internet access via BTC is extremely slow. BTC are trying to find out what has gone wrong.

Tue 18th May 2010 14:30 We have received an apology from BTC for the degraded internet access from May 12th to May 15th. (Sat 15th May was especially bad.) This was apparently due to planned maintenance by British Telecom. BTC intend to ensure that we are notfied in time in the future.

Sat 17th April 2010 08:15 We note that BTC internet access was down from 00:14 until 01:06. This affected all BTC customers inclusing ADSL.

Tues 30th March 2010 22:00 ADSL internet access was down from 15:46 until 17:35 due to the failure of a router at BTC. Internet access has been stable since then.

Wed 24th March 2010 16:55 For some time now the servers at gov.bw have been rejecting mail originating at ADSL IP addresses. Many of our customers have complained about this. The mail is rejected even if it relayed with authentication through our servers. The rejection message is misleading as it implies that it is our server that has been blocked however the ADSL source IP address is then indicated. e.g.
  > (reason: 554 Service unavailable; Client host [smtp.info.bw] blocked using Barracuda Reputation;
  > http://bbl.barracudacentral.com/q.cgi?ip=168.167.145.xx)
Email policies at gov.bw are outside of our control. Our help desk (391-8444) can give further advice.

Mon 22nd March 2010 18:15 Internet access has been back to normal since 17:41.

Mon 22nd March 2010 17:35 Despite BTC's best efforts there is, only very occasional and fleeting internet access. To all intents and purposes there is no usable access from BTC's network. We have informed BTC of this.

Mon 22nd March 2010 16:30 Internet access has been deteriorating since 13:41. Currently there is no Internet access at all. BTC say they are investigating but do not know the cause of the problem.

Mon 22nd March 2010 14:05 We notice that internet access is again very slow.BTC confirm that they have a failure of one of their links. At present there is no news as to when the situation will improve.

Fri 19th March 2010 08:30 Although internet access appears to be back to normalBTC advise us that they still have problems and warn of delays due to congestion.

Thu 18th March 2010 16:15 BTC's internet service has been extremely slow all day long. Earlier BTC cited congestion on their RSA link as the cause. We have been unable to get an update.

Thu 18th March 2010 10:20 We have had numerous reports of ADSL problems from various areas including Francistown, Kasane and Gaborone. The reported symptom is that there is no internet access but email is working. There are various possible causes of this and we have referred the problem to BTC.

Wed 17th March 2010 16:50 BTC's Internet provision has become completely unstable. BTC confirm that a problem with one of their RSA links is the cause of their problems. They say they are working on the problem.

Wed 17th March 2010 16:10 Internet access through BTC has again become very slow. BTC blame one of their RSA links which appears to be unstable.

Wed 17th March 2010 10:45 BTC has informed us that the repairs to the infrastructure in RSA will be complete at 14h00 today. Until that time traffic is being routed over alternate links and congestion and delays are likely until then.

Wed 17th March 2010 09:30 RSA internet destinations became available at circa 09:25

Wed 17th March 2010 08:50 The last announcemnet was a bit premature. Most international sites appear to be available but at present, RSA sites appear to be unreachable. Regrettably this means that "Botswana" banking sites are also unavailable.

Wed 17th March 2010 08:30 BTC's internet connectivity was restored at 08:18.

Wed 17th March 2010 08:05 All BTC internet access has been down since 00:40 am due to a fibre cut in Joburg. At present there is no indication when services will be resumed. Customers who wish to be notified once service has been restored should leave their contact details with our help desk on 391-8444

Mon 15th March 2010 11:40 Many RSA sites have been unreachable. BTC appears to have resolved the issues a few minutes ago.

Monday 8th March 2010 14:15 BTC resolved their RSA routing issues at approx 12:15.

Monday 8th March 2010 10:45 We have been experiencing problems accessing some domains in RSA. The problem is due to routing issues associated with BTC commissioning a new STM-1 link to South Africa. Customers may experience difficulty sending mail to RSA sites or sending a mail to multiple destinations if one of the addressee is an unreachable RSA domain. BTC hope to resolve their problems this morning.

Thursday March 4th 2010 18:05 Customers who are investigating web- browsing problems that they feel may be related to BTC's transparent proxy may be interested to know that the page http://www.info.bw/status/cache-test.html contains a timestamp that is updated every two minutes. You can try to force a cache refresh by pressing CTRL-F5 on many versions of MS Internet Explorer or SHIFT-RELOAD on Mozilla. Other information is available here

Thursday March 4th 2010 17:58 ADSL performance has been extremely poor for the last two weeks. We have notified BTC about our concern and about the high level of customer complaints.

Wednesday 24th February 2010 10:03 We have received notice from BTC of planned works that will affect ADSL access for customers on the "Metsimotlhabe and Molepolole route" between 17h00 and 17h20 on Thursday 25th Feb.

Monday 22nd February 2010 16:00 Internet access via BTC's bandwidth has been very slow most of the day. BTC blame their RSA link which they say is unstable.

Tuesday 16th February 2010 08:10 Following reports from custmers we have confirmed that BTC is running a transparent proxy on their ADSL service and this proxy is serving up out-of-date web pages. BTC have been informed.

Thursday 11th February 2010 12:30 BTC have confirmed that they have problems with their Ramotswa exchange which is affecting ADSL access in the Ramotswa and Otse areas.

Tuesday 2nd February 2010 08:30 BTC's links came up at 10:15.

Tuesday 2nd February 2010 08:25 Internet access has been very slow since BTC experienced problems during their planned maintenance. They tell us that one of their international failed to come up. A short while ago all internet access went down including from ADSL circuits. We have notified BTC but they currently have no explanation.

Thursday 28th January 2010 14:40 We have received notification from BTC of repair work to the British Telecom subsea cable that will result in slower internet access. The times specified are from 09h00 to 16h00 on @8th and 29th Jan (presumably both days).

Thursday 21st January 2010 16:11 BTC seems to have restored their international links.

Thursday 21st January 2010 15:55 All internet access through BTC went down a short while ago. We are trying to get a response from BTC.

Sunday 27th December 2009 23:02 Throughout the day some ADSL customers have had no internet access. As far as we can tell BTC have now resolved this problem.
Sunday 27th December 2009 06:55 BTC's power failure that prevented all internet access was resolved at approx 11:30pm yesterday evening however they have confirmed that there is a major problem currently with ADSL.

Saturday 19th December 2009 23:50 All of our basic services including webhosting, mail, adsl and dialup connectivity are now working. We are continuing to work on our customer WAN links. We apologize for the interruption to service.

Saturday 19th December 2009 20:30 We have suffered severe damage following a lightning strike at 17:18. We are systematically restoring services and currently DNS, web hosting, corporate mail and inbound mail are working properly. Many customer WAN links are currently down. We hope to have all basic services restored tonight.

Wednesday 16th December 2009 16:00 The previous announcement was, unfortunately, premature. There are still problems accessing our numbers from some BTC exchanges and from some other exchanges the connections speed is always slow. We are trying to escalate this with BTC.

Friday 11th December 2009 15:30 BTC finally resolved their exchange routing problem that was preventing access to our 316-6175 dialup number from many of their exchanges at 11:40 today.

Friday 11th December 2009 11:30 Our dialin links and leased lines in Francistown are down due to a power cut affecting central Francistown. We apologise for the inconvenience.

Wednesday 9th December 2009 18:15 internet link restored.

Wednesday 9 th December 2009 13:00 Experiencing internet outage due to fiber link problems.We have reported to BTC, who are working on resolving the fault.

Monday 7th December 2009 11:00 BTC have notified us of a planned outage affecting all internet access from 01h00 to 03h00 on Friday 11th Dec. We aplogize for the inconvenience.

Tuesday 1st December 2009 08:30 We have a continuing problem with our 316-6175 dialup number which is inaccessible from most BTC exchanges. BTC were notified of the isssue on 25/11/09. Customers are encouraged to contact our help desk on 391-8444 if they would like to be advised once access is restored.

Friday 27th November 2009 10:58 BTC have notified us of planned work which will affect ADSL, Leased Line and Frame Relay services to custoners in Nata, Tutume, Sua, Gweta and Dukwi from 00h01 to 04h00 on Thursday Dec 3rd 2009.

Wednesday 25th November 2009 08:45 One of our primary rate ISDN lines is again down. This is the same line that went down 9 days ago. Pls call our helpdesk on 391-8444 if you woud like to be informed once BTC have rectified the fault. Once again we apologize for the inconvenience.

Tuesday 17th November 2009 19:07 We see that BTC got their connectivity back at 18:45.

Tuesday 17th November 2009 18:30 BTC appears to have lost all internet connectivity at 18:16. We are trying to notify them and to get some feedback.

Monday 16th November 2009 16:25 BTC have restored our PRI line.

Monday 16th November 2009 14:15 One of our primary rate ISDN lines is down. This will affect many of our dialup customers. BTC have been informed. Pls call our helpdesk on 391-8444 if you woud like to be informed once BTC have rectified the fault. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thursday 5th November 2009 11:48 We have received notification from BTC of maintenence work that will be carried out at 21h00 today. It will affect services (inc ADSL) to Kasane and Kazungula for up to 20 mins.

Friday 23rd Ocober 2009 14:05 It appears that the problem with access to South African domains extends beyond the MTN network. The problem appears to be related to the South African Internet Exchange (SAIX).

Friday 23rd Ocober 2009 12:10 MTN's network in South Africa is unreachable from Botswana. BTC have been informed and are trying to resolve the issue with SA Telkom.

Thursday 22nd October 2009 10:52 We have received a notice from BTC advising of planned work at their Gabane RLU that may affect ADSL customers. The work is planned to last 3 hours from 21h00 on 23/10/09.

Friday 9th October 2009 07:50 Overnight BTC's internet links were down from 18:15 to 18:27 and from 22:56 to 23:04

Thursaday 8th October 2009 18:27 BTC's internet bandwidth has been up and down this afternoon however it died completely at 18:15. BTC have been informed.

Wednesday 30th September 2009 14:35 The ns1.btc.bw name server came up again at 14:30.

Wednesday 30th September 2009 11:15 We note that one of BTC's name servers responsible for the .BW domain is down. ns1.btc.bw (168.167.168.34) went down at 22:07 yesterday. Most customers will be unaffected by this however system administrators who are using BTC's DNS and who have hard-coded the DNS servers as ns1.btc.bw and vpsm.btc.bw (168.167.253.21) will have no internet access.
BTC publishes the following as as the botswana-based DNS servers for .BW.
168.167.253.21 vpsm.btc.bw.
168.167.168.34 ns1.btc.bw.
168.167.253.20 ns4.btc.bw.
The first two are unavailable. Currently only ns4.btc.bw is responding.
In an emergency customers may wish to use the OpenDNS nameservers which are 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220

Tuesday 29th September 2009 18:30 BTC's links were restored at 17:45

Tuesday 29th September 2009 17:35 All BTC international internet bandwidth appears to be down. BTC say they are aware that one of their links is down. There is no connectivity for ADSL or BTC metro ethernet.

Saturday 26th September 2009 16:10 Our digital dial-in lines have been restored.

Saturday 26th September 2009 10:55 All of our digital dial-in lines are down. BTC has been informed.

Saturday 26th September 2009 08:55 Our BTC-supplied internet bandwidth was down from 02:59 until 03:40

Friday 25th September 2009 00:20 The last of our BTC WAN links which went down during the storm was restored a short while ago. Mains power has also been restored and all systems are fully functional.

Thursday 24th September 2009 18:15 We are experiencing a power cut in G'West. We are, however running on a backup generator and do not anticipate any problems.

Thursday 24th September 2009 18:00 The BTC link that brings ADSL customer to us went down in the current storm. BTC have been notified.

Wednesday 23rd September 2009 14:32 BTC have lost their link to USA. Internet browsing is slow. BTC have no news as to when the link will be restored.

Wednesday 16th September 2009 15:05 BTC acknowledge that they had lost their USA link. They report that the link has now been restored.

Wednesday 16th September 2009 14:15 Internet access has become unstable. We have notified BTC.

Thursday 11th September 2009 16:31 BTC have fixed their ADSL backhaul link to the ISPs. Our websites and mail servers are now visible.

Thursday 11th September 2009 15:33 Although BTC's ADSL service was restored a short while ago there are still serious problems on their network and it appears that there is no route from BTC's network to the networks of those ISPs who are BTC's ADSL partners. This mean that many local websites and mail servers are unreachable from ADSL customers and BTC's network although they are accessible from the rest of the internet. BTC have been informed.

Thursday 11th September 2009 15:00 BTC's ADSL service appears to be down. From our perspective they seem to have a major problem with their frame relay. We are seeking clarification from BTC.

Wednesday 2nd September 2009 12:09 The BTC ADSL network appears to be returning to normal. We haven't had an explanation of the cause of the interruption.

Wednesday 2nd September 2009 11:47 It appears that BTC's ADSL network experienced a major failure at approx 11:25. We are trying to contact BTC to get further details.

Thursday 27th August 2009 10:00 We have received sporadic reports from customers who are experiencing delays while trying to POP mail from our servers. Other protocols seem to be unaffected. We are investigating what could be the cause and we apologize for the inconvenience.

Thursday 20th August 2009 17:30 BTC's internet links dropped a short while ago. At the time of writing they have been restored. We note that yesterday all of our traffic was being routed via BTC's new USA link. Currently all traffic is being routed over their UK link.

Wednesday 19th August 2009 16:11 BTC have warned us of a planned upgrade of two of their international internet links which will result in downtime of 30 minutes on their UK and RSA links from 01h00 to 03h00 on Saturday 22nd August.

Wednesday 19th August 2009 16:05 We remind Molepolole ADSL customers of BTC's planned outage of ADSL services at their Molepolole exchange scheduled for Midnight tonight until 02h00 tomorrow.

Tuesday 18th August 2009 08:45 We have experienced several power cuts this morning and we are currently running on backup power. So far BTC services are unaffected and we do not anticipate any interruption to services.

Friday 14th August 2009 17:39 Internet access has been restored.

Friday 14th August 2009 17:33 All internet access is down due to a failure of a router at BTC. There is no information as to when this will be resolved but we are hopeful the service will be restored soon.

Thursday 13th August 2009 12:00 BTC have informed us of a planned outage of ADSL services at their Molepolole exchange which will last from Midnight on 19th August until 02h00 on 20th August.

Thursday 13th August 2009 12:00 BTC have informed us of a planned outage of ADSL services at their Molepolole exchange which will last from Midnight on 19th August until 02h00 on 20th August.

Friday 7th August 2009 07:59 Some of our customers were unable to access their POP server to retrieve their mail for several hours early this morning. The problem has been resolved and we apologize for the inconvenience.

Tuesday 4th August 2009 10:35 BTC have informed us of a planned upgrade to their Kasane exchange which will alleviate ADSL congestion there. The work is scheduled for Thursday 6th Aug but the time and duration of the outage are not specified.

Monday 27th July 2009 11:00 BTC have notified us of scheduled work which will impact their ADSL service for customers serviced by the following exchanges:
RLU6 (Phase4 & Kgale)
RLU1 (Broadhurst Industrial)
They estimate a 4 hour downtime from 27th July 2009 22h00 until 28th July 02h00

Friday 17th July 2009 16:10 We have had reports over the past two days of customers who are connecting to the internet via BBI's network and who are unable to POP their mail from one of our servers (mail.info.bw). We have identified that customers can retrieve their mail if they specify the IP address (168.167.100.7) instead of the domain name. No other ISP's are experiencing this problem and users are popping their mail from around the world. This seems to indicate that the problem is related to DNS resolution on BBI's network. We have notified BBI of this. We advise customers to use the IP address above until the problem has been rectified. Pls call our help desk on 391-8444 if you need help in reconfiguring your email client.

Wednesday 15th July 2009 16:30 BTC have solved the switching problem that was preventing calls being routed to our switchboard from other exchanges.

Wednesday 15th July 2009 14:30 The switching problems at BTC which are preventing most calls to our switchboard are continuing. It now appears that the problem started on Monday. There is anecdotal evidence that other companies may also be experiencing similar problems as BTC continues to upgrade its exchanges to "NGN" equipment. We have strenuously complained to BTC.

Tuesday 14th July 2009 10:15 We have ascertained that there is a problem at BTC whereby calls from from many BTC exchanges as well as call from all cell phone providers (inc BE Mobile) are not being routed to our switchboard number 391-8444. We can be contacted, however, from BTC landlines connected to BTC's MSU2 exchange. BTC have been informed.

Monday 13th July 2009 17:40 It appears that many of our switchboard lines are down. Apparently this is due to work being carried out at BTC to upgrade their exchange. Customers who are unable to call us but who still have internet connectivity can email their phone number to our help desk at support@info.bw and we will call them back.
This does not affect our internet dialin lines which, apart from those in Maun, are all working properly. We apologize for the inconvenience

Monday 13th July 2009 16:40 There is a problem with our dialin lines in Maun. We have reported it to BTC.

Friday 10th July 2009 17:17 BTC have informed us that their UK link has been restored.

Friday 10th July 2009 16:30 BTC have confirmed that their UK link is down. We are intrigued that the highly-resourced google website was unavailable. We suspect that maybe the routes were cached at BTC.

Friday 10th July 2009 16:15 Internet access has become quite slow and erratic. We note that www.google.com was unreachable from 15:51 to 16:14. We have asked BTC if they are aware of stability issues.

Thursday 9th July 2009 16:04 As far as we can tell the problem with BTC's ADSL was resolved at approx 15:40. On average it seems customers were down for about 1 hour.

Thursday 9th July 2009 14:05 There appear to be some serious problems with BTC's ADSL service. We are trying to get an update from BTC.

Monday 6th July 2009 16:48 When ADSL was first launched each ISP was allocated a range of IPs by which they could identify their own customers. Over time BTC has moved away from this scheme and recently they changed the IP ranges assigned to those still on the "old system". Any ADSL customers who were affected by this and are experiencing difficulty sending mail are advised to contact our help desk on 391-8444 to get help in configuring their email client to use SMTP AUTH when sending mail. We are supporting mail relaying from the new IP ranges but this is a stop-gap measure until all ADSL customers have moved to SMTP AUTH.

Thursday 2nd July 2009 13:55 BTC's London link went down again at 12:05. ADSL, leased line and dialup customers will all experience slower internet access.

Monday 29th June 2009 16:30 We have noticed that internet access over ADSL, even to local sites, is extermely slow. BTC have now issued a warning of emergency works to be carried out on one of their ATM nodes at their MSU Exchange (Megaleng). The works are scheduled to last seven hours i.e. until midnight. They warn that some ADSL customers may be affected.

Monday 29th June 2009 11:40 We see that BTC lost their UK link again at 11:00 am. We have no more information at the present time except that BTC are aware of the problem.

Friday 26th June 2009 15:50 We have been observing BTC's bandwidth this afternoon and it now seems to be stable. We are returning our status page to alert level green.

Friday 26th June 2009 12:04 We are experiencing a power cut affecting part of Gaborone West. We are running on backup power and do not anticipate any interruption to services.

Friday 26th June 2009 10:04 Unfortunateley we have observed that once again BTC have a problem with their UK link. BTC confirm this.

Friday 26th June 2009 08:15 We note that internet access via BTC was cut from 00h14 to 00h37 during their overnight maintenance on their UK link. They report that the work was successful and they do not anticipate further disruption.

Thursday 25th June 2009 18:00 At the time of writing BTC's links are all up and internet access is extremely fast.

Thursday 25th June 2009 17:24 BTC's UK link remains down and internet access is extremely slow. BTC have now warned of emergency maintenance to be carried out tonight between 23h00 and 02h00. During that time they warn of slower internet speeds!

Thursday 25th June 2009 14:20 Following this morning's good bandwidth we observed a degradaton in BTC's bandwidth since midday. BTC have now confirmed that they have, again, lost their UK link. Internet browsing will be erratic with some sites being unreachable.

Wednesday 24th June 2009 17:18 We have received another notification from BTC that they are going to repair their UK link tonight. We are not sure if this was sent in error but we can confirm that there do still seem to be major problems with their international links.

Wednesday 24th June 2009 08:15 BTC have confirmed that their problems with their UK link persisted throughout Tuesday. They now say that emergency work overnight was successful in restoring full service.

Tuesday 23rd June 2009 17:05 Despite our earlier optimism and BTC assurances we are not convinced that BTC's links are performing correctly. Although the quality of the bandwidth supplied has improved we do not believe we are receiving our full bandwidth from BTC and our traffic patterns support this view.

Tuesday 23rd June 2009 08:53 BTC confirm that their problems with their UK link were resolved overnight. It appears that that our bandwidth became clean at about 20:30 last night and internet access is back to normal.

Monday 22nd June 2009 17:40 BTC have informed us that in addition to the original problem affecting their international links they have an additional (unspecified) problem which is further complicationg the situation. There is no information as to when full services will be restored.

Monday 22nd June 2009 16:30 BTC have been experiencing severe problems with their international feeds since last Thursday i.e. for the last five days. We note that the amount of bandwidth supplied to us has just plummetted again. We are trying to get more information from BTC.

Monday 22nd June 2009 15:20 Internet traffic is slill very slow. BTC say the problem still remains with BT who are attempting to sort out the problem.

Friday 19th June 2009 17:20 BTC have acknowledged the continuing problem with their UK internet link. Apparently their bandwidth provider in UK (BT) have accepted that the problem is their (BT's) responsibility and are working to restore full service.

Friday 19th June 2009 08:58 Although all of BTC's international links appear to be working we are still observing slow internet access. It appears that BTC is experiencing congestion and we are not receiving the expected bandwidth.

Thursday 18th June 2009 16:15 BTC have restored their UK link and internet browsing is back to normal.

Thursday 18th June 2009 13:40 Internet browsing has become extremely slow. BTC blame the loss of one of their international links.

Tuesday 16th June 2009 16:45 BTC have notified us about a planned outage affecting ADSL customers in Francistown and Tati Siding. Their notice states that their work will be carried out from 21h00 to 22h00 on June 16th. (Beware though - it states that the outage will last for 2 hours.)

Monday 15th June 2009 13:54 We have had numerous reports from ADSL customers unable to browse the web apart from local sites. BTC say they were unaware of any problem but will investigate.

Thursday 11th June 2009 17:15 BTC have lost one of their international links. Internet access will be erratic until they resolve the problem.

Thursday 4th June 2009 16:48 We have received notification from BTC of planned work on their Pilane RLU from 5th June 19h00 until 6th June 01h00. All ADSL customers connected to that exchange will be affected.

Monday 25th May 2009 17:05 BTC have informed us of planned maintenance that will affect ADSL customers attached to the Molepolole RLU-1 exchange. The work will begin at 22h00 on May 26th and should be complete by 01h00 on May 27th.

Monday 25th May 2009 15:53 We have observed that there is very heavy packet loss on one of BTC's international internet links. BTC have been notified.

Tuesday 19th May 2009 10:25 We have been experiencing low BPC voltage for some minutes. BPC has now instituted load-shedding in our area. We are running on backup power but do not anticipate any interruption to our services. We cannot, however, guarantee continuity of service from third parties such as Botswana Telecoms.

Monday 18th May 2009 13:30 BTC have restored their international link. The complete outage was from 12:45 to 13:08.

Monday 18th May 2009 13:05 BTC seem to have lost international internet connectivity.

Monday 11th May 2009 09:20 We have received notice from BTC of a planned outage which is scheduled to last from 23h00 on Tues 12th May to 04h00 on Wed 13th May. It seems that all of their data network services will be affected including leased line and internet access. We are informed that the entire ADSL network will be down.
Customers with dialup acces, including our ADSL customers will still be able to dial in to us to send and receive mail. Please contact our helpdesk on 391-8444 if you need assistance with this.

Thursday 7th May 2009 08:35 ADSL Post Office mail is now flowing properly.

Thursday 7th May 2009 08:15 We are experiencing difficulties sending mail to some of our ADSL post office clients. We hope to have the problem fixed shortly.

Tuesday 5th May 2009 07:50 BTC resolved their problems at MSU2 at 19:00 yesterday. Our WAN links to the North are now working.

Monday 4th May 2009 15:50 Our links to Francistown and Maun are still down.

Monday 4th May 2009 08:30 Our links to Francistown and Maun are down. BTC blame a failure at their MSU2 exchnage but have no news when it will be fixed.

Tuesday 21st April 2009 20:30 We understand that by 17:00 the failure in BTC's ATM backbone had been resolved and the ADSL system was working normally.

Tuesday 21st April 2009 12:19 We have received numerous reports of ADSL failures. We have notified BTC but thye have not yet identified the problem.

Friday 17th April 2009 18:40 We have received notification from BTC of engineering work to be carried out on their ADSL infrastructure at Riverwalk between midnight and 0200 on April 19th.

Wednesday 8th April 2009 11:50 Access to our website and some websites that we host has been slow/intermittent due to a denial of service attack. We believe we have resolved the issue and apologize for the disruption to our service.

Thursday 2nd April 2009 16:40 Further to the notice below in case this was not understood:
DO NOT TURN OFF OR UNPLUG THE ADSL LINE FROM YOUR ADSL MODEM
you may be unable to reconnect to the ADSL network.
We can't get any update from BTC as to when this will be fixed. We remind our customers that we provide a backup dialup account for all our ADSL customers so they can at least connect and send/receive their mail while ADSL is down. Please call our helpdesk on 391-8444 if you require assistance.

Thursday 2nd April 2009 15:28 We have observed a major problem with BTC's ADSL service countrywide. ADSL users who re-connect to the ADSL network are being refused. BTC have now conceded that there is a problem and say they are addressing it.

Wednesday 1st April 2009 08:25 We have observed that many of our ADSL post office customers went off-line throughout the early hours of the morning. We have also received numerous calls from ADSL customers. We have notified BTC who said they would investigate. We have just observed that those post office customers are now on-line and we presume that BTC have fixed their problem. We will, of course, verify with any customers who have lodged calls, that their lines are now functional.

Sunday 15th March 2009 22:05 Our Francistown POP is down due to an extended power cut affecting the centre of town.

Tuesday 24th February 2009 19:40 All mail to any address at gov.bw from any Botswana IP address routed via BTC is being rejected by the gov.bw mail servers. We have notified their network administrators.

Tuesday 24th February 2009 10:30 It appears that BTC is blocking outgoing email to the internet from ADSL users. We were not informed of this policy change. We advise our customers to send their outgoing mail via our mail servers. ADSL customers should contact our helpdesk (391-8444) if they need help in configuring their email clients.

Wednesday 4th February 2009 07:55 Due to a massive spam attack there may be delays in delivering some corporate mail until we have controlled the attack.

Thursday 29th January 2009 13:40 DIT notified us yesterday that their mail problems had been addressed however we are still seeing rejections for mail from ADSL IP addresses sending to gov.bw.

Wednesday 28th January 2009 15:17 We have been experiencing mail delivery problems to addresses at gov.bw with mail originating at numerous ADSL IP addresses. We have analyzed the problem and notified staff at DIT however we are still awaiting a response from them. Our dialup, wireless and leased line customers are not affected.

Wednesday 21st January 2009 11:40 Apparently BTC have now resolved their ADSL problems in Maun. We would be grateful if any customers who are experiencing problems with ADSL could contact our help desk on 391-8444.

Wednesday 21st January 2009 10:54 BTC have repaired our WAN link to Francistown.

Tuesday 20th January 2009 17:05 Our WAN link to Francistown is down. BTC say they are investigating it.

Tuesday 20th January 2009 11:50 Following customer complaints from Maun BTC have now acknowledged that there is a problem with ADSL in the Maun area and they are working in it. There is no indication when service will be restored.

Friday 12th December 2008 10:30 The problem with delegation of IP addresses assigned to BTC appears to originate at AfriNIC.net. Although they claim to have corrected their changes it appears that the corrections are not complete and there will still be mail delivery problems. We are liaising with BTC to get the problem properly resolved.
For more details please see our note on the Botswana DNS

Thursday 11th December 2008 17:20 We have identified a problem in the way that responsibility for IP addresses is delegated to Botswana. This will result in mail delivery problems when talking to certain mail servers. We have notified BTC about the problem.

Tuesday 9th December 2008 08:15 Our WAN link to Maun is down due to a power failure affecting the centre of Maun.

Monday 8th December 2008 10:20 BTC have notified us of engineering works which will affect their Orapa-Maun link. The work is scheduled to be carried out throughout today, ending at 17:00hrs.

Friday 28th November 2008 08:30 We have received a notice from BTC of a scheduled interruption to service in Orapa which will take place on Dec 2nd from 20h00 - 21h00. This will affect leased line and ADSL customers.

Monday 17th November 2009 10:30 BTC have restored services at their Phikwe node and our link now seems to be stable.

Monday 17th November 2009 08:20 Our WAN link to Phikwe is down due to a failure of the BTC node there. BTC have no estimate as to when the link will be fixed.

Thursday 13th November 2008 11:10 BTC confirm that there is a problem affecting ADSL customers in the Tlokweng area.

Monday 13th October 2008 16:50 It seems that at approx 16:25 BTC lost their Amsterdam link again. Internet access will be slow for all BTC users inc ADSL customers. There is no news as to when the link will be fixed.

Friday 10th October 2008 16:45 At 15:42 SA Telkom experienced some major network disruption affecting numerous links including our RSA link. There may be difficulty experienced reaching some South African sites.

Friday 10th October 2008 12:10 We have received notification from Botswana Telecoms of possible degraded service on their internet links between 13:00 and 14:00 today.

Thursday 9th October 2008 16:40 Our links to Francistown are down due to a power cut affecting part of central Francistown.

Monday 6th October 2008 14:10 This morning BBI and BTC resolved part of the routing problem preventing access to BBI-hosted domains. It is now possible to reach the BBI DNS and mail servers from other ISPs' ADSL customer connections. There remains a routing issue, however, between BTC MAN customers and BBI. This is affecting mail to and from BBI-hosted domains and mail with a "from:" address at those domains.

Saturday 4th October 2008 11:00 Some of our customers retrieve their mail using connections from other ISPs. We note that for several days the BBI network has been enreachable from BTC ADSL connections and other connections routed via BTC. The cause of this is a routing issue between BBI and BTC. We have alerted BBI about this. Please note that our servers are *NOT* down and are reachable fron other Botswana ISPs and from the internet.

Saturday 4th October 2008 10:05 BTC's Amsterdam link is down again. Internet access will be slow.

Thursday 2nd October 2008 18:15 As far as we can tell internet access via BTC's bandwidth (MAN and ADSL) has been working properly since 17:15.

Thursday 2nd October 2008 15:57 Internet access via BTC is once again unstable. Their Amsterdam link, apparently, was restored at 12:30, however we are currently noticing significant packet loss over internet links. We are trying to notify BTC.

Thursday 2nd October 2008 11:05 BTC confirm that their Amsterdam link is down. Metro-Ethernet and ADSL customers are all being affected.

Thursday 2nd October 2008 10:45 Once again we are having problems with BTC's international internet bandwidth. Their links were completely down at 04:00 today and we are currently experiencing intermittent but heavy packet loss.

Tuesday 30th September 2008 21:05 BTC's international internet connections have been much improved today although we note that connectivity was lost completely between 20:28 and 20:36

Monday 29th September 2008 09:50 BTC's international internet bandwidth has been extremely slow for the entire weekend. Apparently the link which had been giving trouble has now been fixed but now another link has become unreliable and the routing of traffic over fewer links is causing congestion. BTC have no timeline, at present, for a fix.
This problem affects all internet traffic over BTC's international links including ADSL traffic.

Sunday 28th September 2008 13:00 All BTC international internet connectivity was down from 02:00 to 03:00 today. This affected Metro Ethernet and ADSL customers.

Saturday 27th September 2008 11:45 BTC's ADSL service is very slow in some parts of Gaborone. BTC have been informed.

Saturday 27th September 2008 10:20 The problem we experienced earlier with internet connection via BTC's MAN has re-occured. BTC have been notified.

Saturday 27th September 2008 09:00 A problem affecting our internet access via BTC's Metro Ethernet Network was resolved by BTC at 08:00. Mail will have been delayed. There was no impact on ADSL customers.

Friday 26th September 2008 16:00 As far as we can tell BTC have fixed their problems with ADSL in the Commerce Park area. Any customers still experiencing slow speeds or other problems should contact our help desk so the matter can be investigated.

Friday 26th September 2008 09:07 BTC have resolved the problem with their MAN internet access.

Friday 26th September 2008 08:35 We are experiencing massive packet loss on our BTC Metro-Ethernet (MAN) link. Our ADSL customers will be unaffected but our wireless, dialup and leased line customers will experience delays accessing the internet. BTC are investigating.

Thursday 25th September 2008 09:57 We have heard from BTC about a problem affecting ADSL customers in the Pitsane - Goodhope - Kanye area. Their technicians are attending to the fault.

Thursday 25th September 2008 09:30 BTC have issued a press release about the problems with their ADSL service. In it they advise customers to contact their ISPs for information.
The latest information we have is that BTC say their network is now stable but that some customers may still be affected. We would like to urge any customers with intermittent or slow ADSL connectivity to contact us so that we can press their case with BTC.

Thursday 25th September 2008 08:55 A problem affecting dialup customers in Francistown should be resolved shortly. We apologize for the inconvenience caused.

Thursday 25th September 2008 08:50 The problems with BTC's ADSL service continue today. A number of previously-affected customers have now had connectivity restored but many more remain to be addressed.

Wednesday 24th September 2008 14:00 ADSL is still extremely unreliable in Commerce Park and nearby areas. As a group of ISPs we met with BTC today. They are hopeful that their problems will be resolved today. If internet connectivity is mission-critical, however, then we would advise preparing a contingency plan.

Wednesday 24th September 2009 08:28 The ADSL problems in Commerce Park persist. BTC say that they hope to have the problem resolved by the end of business today.

Tuesday 23rd September 2008 14:30 We have reports that the ADSL in Commerce Park is down again. We have notified BTC.

Tuesday 23rd September 2008 14:40 It appears that ADSL is up now in Commerce Park however we still have customers down in the "Nokia circle" area. BTC have been informed.

Tuesday 23rd September 2008 14:10 BTC claim that the problem affecting ADSL customers in the Commerce Park area since yesterday afternoon has now been resolved. We are currently verifiying if service has been restored to all the affected customers.

Tuesday 23rd September 2008 10:20 The ADSL problems in the Commerce Park - Kgale mews are continuing. We are unable to get a meaningful response from BTC despite numerous phone calls emails and faxes. We have confirmed with several other ISPs that they are also experiencing the same ADSL problems.
We remind our customers that all of our ADSL customers are given a dialup acount which they can use to retrieve their mail. We also have wireless connectivity available. Please call our helpdesk on 391-8444 if you would like more information about these options.

Monday 22nd September 2008 16:40 A large number of ADSL customers in the Commerce Park, Kgale Mews area are unable to access the internet. BTC say they are working on the problem.

Friday 19th September 2008 16:40 We observe that a number of our ADSL customers in the G/West area lost connection to the BTC ADSL network at approx 14:45 and only got connectivity back at 16:14. We have been unable to get an explanation from BTC.

Thursday 18th September 2008 07:55 It appears that international connectivity on BTC's ADSL network was down from 00:20 until 01:21 this morning.

Tuesday 16th September 2008 14:00 BTC apparently has lost one of its international links which is why ADSL traffic and other BTC bandwidth is so slow. We have no information as to when the fault will be rectified.

Tuesday 16th September 2008 13:00 All customers affected by the mail outage are being notified by email. There is therefore no need to contact our help desk unless you have additional queries. In that instance, however, we will be very pleased to assist you.

Tuesday 16th September 2008 08:58 Due to a technical problem email for certain customers was returned to sender as undeliverable during a period from approx 15:00 yesterday to 08:30 today. The problem has been resolved and we apologize sincerely for the inconvenience caused.
Affected customers are welcome to contact our help desk on 391-8444. They will gather your details and prepare a report on what mail was rejected.

Monday 15th September 2008 15:40 We have observed a pattern of ADSL problems in Maun. BTC have been informed. Their ADSL problems in Phakalane persist. BTC say the problem in Phakalane should soon be rectified.

Monday 15th September 2008 08:45 ADSL services in Phakalane have been down since a power cut on Saturday due to a problem at the BTC Phakalane exchange. BTC are working on the problem.

Sunday 14th September 2008 10:05 Our WAN links to Francistown are down due to widespread power cuts there. BTC hope that their infrastructure will have power by midday.

Thursday 11th September 2008 11:45 BTC confirm that one of their international links is down thereby causing congestion on their other links.

Thursday 11th September 2008 11:30 We note that BTC's international bandwidth is very slow. This is affecting all of their customers including ADSL customers.

Wednesday 10th September 2008 07:55 BTC's international links and therefore internet connectivity for their ADSL service was down from 22:49 last night until 02:29 this morning. BTC have been informed.

Tuesday 9th September 2008 13:48 BTC's ADSL service has been up and down today. It is currently down. We have also experienced trouble with other BTC-supplied bandwidth.

Monday 8th September 2008 16:25 We have observed that internet access through Botswana Telecoms' bandwidth is very slow. BTC have confirmed the problem. ADSL customers will also be affected. We invite our customers to leave their details with our helpdesk (391-8444) if they would like to be notified once BTC have resolved their problem.

Wednesday 3rd September 2008 16:45 We have been the victim of a denial of service attack which has interrupted access to one of our mail relays. We apologize for the delays in service and believe that we have mitigated the attack.

Tuesday 2nd September 2008 08:20 We understand that the present power cut affecting large parts of Gaborone is due to a failure of the main line from Morupule. We are running on backup generator power and can continue indefinitely. Customer internet connectivity may, however, be dependent on their own ADSL, leased-line or wireless connectivity.

Friday 29th August 2008 08:30 We are in the process of completing a renumbering exercise on our network. The only effect that most customers should experience is an improvement in speed. A few customers who have configured their equipment to connect to IP addresses on our network instead of host names will experience problems. We request those customers to either use host names or to contact our helpdesk (391-8444) for assistance.

Thursday 7th August 2008 22:50 BTC's ADSl problems were resolved at about 18:20

Thursday 7th August 2008 17:40 There has been a problem throughout day for some ADSL customers connecting to BTC's MSU2 exchange. We have notified BTC.

Wednesday 30th July 2008 18:18 BTC's services were restored at 18:12. Their internet access, ADSL and DNS all seem to be working notmally.

Wednesday 30th July 2008 17:25 We see that all of BTC services have now gone down including ADSL.

Wednesday 30th July 2008 17:20 Our BTC link to the internet went down at approx 17:04. BTC have been notified. We are currently routing all of our customers over our satellite link. We apologise for the brief loss of service experienced by some of our customers.

Saturday 19th July 2008 20:15 BTC's ADSL network came back up at exactly 20:00.

Saturday 19th July 2008 19:55 Our WAN links to F'Town and Phikwe went down at 19:40. BTC have been informed.

Saturday 19th July 2008 19:38 As far as we can ascertain, BTC's entire ADSL service is down countrywide. BTC does have internet connectivity and the Botswana DNS servers are reachable so the problem appears to be restricted to the ADSL network. BTC are still investigating.

Saturday 19th July 2008 18:00 BTC's ADSL service went down at 17:30 today. BTC have been informed.

Thursday 17th July 2008 11:33 There may be a short interruption to some of our services at 13:00 today due to system maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Thursday 3rd July 2008 17:00 Most of our ADSL clients in phase 4 were reconnected by 16:20.

Thursday 3rd July 2008 16:05 There is still no forecast on when BTC's ADSL services in Phase 4 in G'West will be restored. BTC, however, confirm that they have a fibre cut and their technicians are working on the problem.

Thursday 3rd July 2008 13:45 BTC's ADSL network appears to be down throughout phase 4. BTC say they are working on the problem.

Friday 27th June 2008 14:14 I thought I had waited long enough to be sure that the power was stable... BPC power is off again but we do not expect any problems.

Friday 27th June 2008 14:11 BPC power was restored at exactly 14:00.

Friday 27th June 2008 13:50 We have been running on backup power since shortly after 12:00 due to a power cut affecting a large part of Gaborone West. All of our systems are working properly and we do not anticipate any interruption to services. As far as we are aware Botswana Telecoms services in this part of town are also unaffected.

Monday 23rd June 2008 12:00 Due to emergency system maintenance there may be a brief loss of connectivity to some of our customers at some time between 13:00 and 14:00 today. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Customers are welcome to call our helpdesk on 391-8444 if they would like to be notified of an "all-clear" when the maintenance is finished.

Tuesday 17th June 2008 19:10 There was an interruption to some of our mail services at 18:01. The problem was resolved and we apologize for the interruption to services.

Tuesday 17th June 2008 10:15 There is a problem affecting internet access via our Maun POP. Customers are advised to dial in through our Gaborone POP using 365-7600. Our help desk (391-8444) will be happy to notify you once the problem has been resolved.

Thursday 5th June 2008 08:00 BTC have had a transmission failure affecting lines going to he North of the country. Consequently our POPs in F'Town and Phikwe have been down. They believe the problem has now been fixed.

Wednesday 4th June 2008 08:10 A problem which was preventing certain customers from fully accessing our network has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Monday 2nd June 2008 16:00 BTC's link bringing us ADSL traffic is now working correctly.

Monday 2nd June 2008 09:30 Once again we have a problem with the BTC link bringing us their ADSL traffic. Locally-hosted websites and our mail servers are difficult to reach. Affected customers are requested to contact our helpdesk on 391-8444 so that they can be notified once the problem is resolved.

Tuesday 27th May 2008 14:20 Our ADSL customers have been experiencing delays retrieving POP mail and accessing our hosted websites. The problem was caused by the 2Mbps BTC link bringing the ADSL traffic to us. The link appears to have been fixed and traffic is now flowing normally.

Wednesday 14th May 2008 11:30 Our WAN link to Francistown is down due to a power failure affecting the centre of town.

Saturday 3rd May 2008 11:20 The ADSL network is now working properly.

Saturday 3rd May 2008 08:30 BTC has a serious problem with their network and currently their ADSL network has no connection to the internet or to local ISPs.

Tuesday 29th April 2008 08:30 We are observing line instability problems with our WAN link to Maun. We are also observing line resets with ADSL customers in Maun. BTC confirm that they have a network problem in Maun and are investigating.

Monday 28th April 2008 08:20 The issue with instability of two of our BTC dialup E1 lines remains unresolved.

Friday 25th April 2008 08:25 Although we are now getting dialup traffic from BTC's MSU-1 exchange on one of our troubled E1 lines the traffic from their MSU-2 exchange is still subject to disruption. We urge our customers to use the alternate dialup numbers described below.

Thursday 24th April 2008 09:00 We continue to experience line instability with two of our E1 lines bringing dialup customer traffic from Info and Global customers. BTC are working on the problem. Global Internet Access customers can avoid the problem by using this number 365-6700 (please note this is not the same as one of our other dialin numbers 365-7600). Info Botswana customers should dial 316-6175.
Please call our help desk on 391-8444 if you need help reconfiguring your dialup.

Wednesday 23rd April 2008 13:30 One of our BTC E1 lines bringing dialup customer traffic from BTC's MSU-2 exchange (in G'West) is unstable causing customer calls to be dropped periodically. BTC has been informed. Affected customers are advised to do a "proxy logon" through our Gaborone GIA dialup server. Please call our helpdesk on 391-8444 for assistance.

Tuesday 22nd April 2008 07:50 Our WAN link to Phikwe is down due to a BTC transmission problem affecting some traffic to the North.

Wed 2nd April 2008 11:00 BTC have repaired the link bringing us ADSL traffic.

Wed 2nd April 2008 07:55 Once again ADSL customers are experiencing delays retrieving mail and browsing local sites due to a problem with the BTC link bringing us our ADSL traffic. We are notifying BTC.

Tuesday 25th March 2008 15:53 BTC have repaired the link brining our ADSL customers' traffic.

Tuesday 25th March 2008 15:35 The link that brings our ADSL traffic is completely down while BTC are investigating the problems with that link.

Tuesday 25th March 2008 11:00 There appears to still be a problems with the BTC link bringing ADSL traffic to us. We have reported it to BTC.

Tuesday 25th March 2008 10:25 BTC has resolved the power failure that was interrupting all traffic from ADSL customers to local ISPs.

Tuesday 25th March 2008 09:55 We have implemented a new IP address for ADSL customers to POP their info.bw mail pending BTC's resolution of the problem. Please contact our help desk on 391-8444 for assistance in configuring this in your email client.
ADDENDUM TO THIS NOTICE -------------
We will dynamically implement new IP addresses as and when required via DNS. Customers do not need to make any changes to their email clients.

Tuesday 25th March 2008 09:35 ADSL customers are experiencing problems retrieving their mail and browsing locally-hosted websites. The problem seems due to instability on a BTC link bringing us ADSL traffic. We are currently unable to get through to phones in BTC so their problem might be power related.

Tuesday 18th March 2008 11:03 We have been running on backup power since 08:30 this morning due to BPC load shedding. All our systems are functional and all of our BTC services remin unaffected.

Monday 17th March 2008 11:15 Our WAN link to Phikwe is down due to a transmission failure between F'Town and Phikwe.

Tuesday 4th March 2008 16:50 The problem with accessing domains hosted by Internet Solutions in RSA has been resolved. We are now removing the "workarounds" that we installed to maintain email and web connectivity to those domains.

Friday 29th February 2008 00:30 We have an unconfirmed report of a problem with BTC's ADSL service affecting customers connecting to the MSU-1 (Megaleng) exchange. As a precaution customers should not turn off or disconnect their ADSL modems unnecessarily. Customers experiencing problems should contact our helpdesk on 391-8444 or by email to support@info.bw

Thursday 28th February 2008 07:25 We apologize for a problem that was preventing some of our customers from accessing our mail servers. The problem has now been fixed.

Wednesday 27th February 2008 14:40 We have become aware of an apparent routing problem within Internet Solutions in RSA. We are unable to reach a number of IS hosted mail sites and their customers are unable to reach our servers. We are trying to contact their network staff to get them to resolve the problem.

Monday 18th February 2008 16:10 BTC's ADSL service to the majority of our customers is down. BTC acknowledge the problem and are investigating.

Tuesday 5th February 2008 23:55 We have been running on emergency power since 19:20 today. BPC cannot advise when power will be restored. All of our systems are working but many of our customers links are down.

Thursday 31st January 2008 17:10 Due to BPC load shedding we have been running on backup power since before 09:00 today until 16:50. All services, however, have been working normally.

Wednesday 23rd January 2008 13:50 We apologize for the recent interruption to services. BPC's unannounced load shedding coincided with work on our backup power system.

Friday 18th January 2008 13:30 Our WAN link to Maun is down due to a power cut affecting a large part of Maun.

Thursday 17th January 2008 08:10 We received the BTC leased-line modem at our Maun office late on Wednesday. We hope to have the line restored this morning.

Wednesday 16th January 2008 11:30 BTC have promised to have a replacement modem for our Maun WAN link by 12:00.

Tuesday 15th January 2008 17:00 BTC are still trying to source a leased-line modem to restore our WAN link to Maun.

Tuesday 145h January 2008 12:30 Our WAN link to Maun remains down. BTC have arrived on site and agreed that they need to replace the leased-line modem.

Monday 14th January 2008 13:50 Our WAN link to Maun remains down. We are awaiting a replacement leased-line modem from BTC.

Monday 14th January 2008 08:15 Our WAN link to Maun is down following a power cut there. Please notify our help desk on 391-8444 if you would like to be notified once service has been restored.

Friday 11th January 2008 12:05 There will be a brief interruption to our services during the period 13:30 to 14:00 to allow for some urgent maintenance work. We apologize for this and promise to keep the outage as short as possible.

Friday 11th January 2008 09:25 Our WAN link to Maun is down due to a power failure affecting a large part of Maun.

Wednesday 9th January 2008 11:40 A problem on our network which was preventing ADSL customers from reaching local domains has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank our customers for bringing the problem to our attention.

Monday 17th December 2007 17:35 The problem affecting some ADSL logins seems to have lasted from about 15:52 to 17:15. BTC were unaware of the cause of the problem.

Monday 17th December 2007 16:15 We have had a series of reports from ADSL customers who are unable to access the internet. In all cases only the "internet" light on their ADSL modem is red. We suspect that there may be a problem with the authentication servers at BTC and we are currently trying to contact the appropriate staff there.

Friday 7th December 18:05 BTC has experienced a transmission failure going towards Maun. Our WAN link to Maun is down as are customer links and ADSL. BTC hope to have the link repaired before the end of the day.

Wednesday 5th December 2007 15:45 BTC are not yet routing our ADSL customers' traffic to us over our local link. This is causing delays accessing locally hosted services. In particular we note that locally-hosted websites such as our website http://www.info.bw are unreachable from our ADSL customers as the traffic stops at BTC's transparent proxy. Other ISPs' ADSL customers are unaffected.

Wednesday 5th December 2007 13:25 Our link to BTC and their ADSL and internet connectivity all seem to be working now.

Wednesday 5th December 2007 10:13 BTC say they hope to have their systems back up in one hour. Customers are welcome to leave a message with our help desk (391-8444) if they would like to be informed when the BTC service is restored. ADSL customers may dial in to us to receive their mail.

Wednesday 5th December 2007 10:00 BTC's ADSL and internet connectivity is down. We have no further details but BTC assures us they are working on the problem.

Thursday 29th October 2007 16:55 BTC has suffered another transmission failure between Gaborone and Palapye. ADSL and leased line services to Maun are down. Our WAN link to our Maun POP is also affected.

Thursday 29th October 2007 08:55 BTC confirm that their ADSL service in the North of the country still has severe problems.

Wednesday 28th October 2007 17:10 The ADSL service in the North of the country is down due to a BTC fibre cut near Palapye.

Wednesday 28th November 2007 14:10 Internet access outside of Botswana is back to normal.

Wednesday 28th November 2007 09:55 Internet access outside of Botswana is slow due to a fire in Oslo which has destroyed much fibre capacity to our satellite provider. As yet there is no estimate of when full service will be restored. Customers may wish to use our proxy server for increased speed.
Perhaps now is also a good time to discover the benefits of the Botswana Internet Exchange (BINX). Websites locally-hosted by BINX members including the Government of Botswana may be accessed very quickly.

Sunday 18th November 2007 10:55 BTC caution that their internet link might be unstable. We have left our proxy server access open to our ADSL customers until such time as we are happy that the ADSL service is stable.

Sunday 18th November 2007 10:40 BTC's internet access has been restored and their ADSL system is working as normal.

Sunday 18th November 2007 10:05 We have enabled a temporary resource for ADSL customers to access the internet while the BTC service is down. Please configure your browser to use our proxy server (proxy.info.bw port 8080). We have posted instructions here.

Sunday 18th November 2007 10:00 BTC confirm that their internet link remains down. The problem is a major power failure in the UK affecting British Telecom.
ADSL customers will be able to access some locally-hosted internet services, however many such services, such as websites, DNS and email servers will become unavailable from outside of Botswana. Some time back we wrote this description of the implications of BTC DNS failure

Sunday 18th November 2007 09:20 BTC's internet access went down a few minutes ago. ADSL customers will be unable to access the internet and there will be implications for the Botswana DNS if the outage is sustained. We have notified BTC.

Friday 16th November 2007 13:30 Our WAN links to Phikwe and Francistown are down due to a power failure affecting part of Francistown.

Friday 16th November 2007 10:35 All of our systems are working properly. Customers who made temporary changes on advice from our helpdesk are advised to reverse such changes. They are invited to call our helpdesk on 391-8444 if they need help in doing this.

Friday 16th November 2007 09:30 Our mail systems are working fine. The issue with global users logon will be solved shortly.

Friday 16th November 2007 07:40 We have a system problem affecting our global users logging in and affecting some users sending mail. Users are invited to call our help desk who can offer advice and will notify them once service has been fully restored. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thursday 15th November 2007 07:55 A power problem is affecting the area in Phikwe where our offices are located. Dialup and leased line customers there are affected but not ADSL customers. We hope that service will be restord in about one hour.

Friday 2nd November 2007 17:30 BTC's Phikwe link was restored at 17:20.

Friday 2nd November 2007 16:45 BTC have lost their link to Phikwe. Our dialup customers and leased line customers there will be unable to access the internet or our servers. ADSL customers there are also affected.

Thursday 1st November 2007 17:01 BTC's international link has been restored. ADSL traffic is now flowing as usual.

Thursday 1st November 2007 16:50 A few minutes ago BTC lost their internet connectivity through their UK link. At present there is no international connectivity to BTC as BTC is not currently routing traffic over any other links. Our ADSL customers will be unable to browse any websites other than our own.
If connectivity to BTC is lost for an extended period then there will be negative implications for the Botswana DNS and local domains may become unreachable from outside Botswana.

Wednesday 10th October 2007 11:17 BTC's internet department have already resolved their DNS problem which was apparently due to an issue with their UK connection.

Wednesday 10th October 2007 11:14 A few minutes ago we lost touch with all of BTC's name servers. Initial tests show that BTC's ADSL system iteself is OK but ADSL users will be unable to browse or resolve names to IP addresses using BTC's DNS. WE advise our customers to use our DNS 193.220.192.1 and 193.220.192.2 if they are able to do so until the problem is resolved.

Tuesday 9th October 2007 18:27 At 17:00 BTC resolved the BGP problem that had brought down their network and their ADSL service.

Tuesday 9th October 2007 16:43 BTC's ADSL service went down at about 16:25. BTC report that the system is down country-wide and that their technicians are working on it.

Saturday 22nd September 2007 01:45 BTC completed repairs to their Maun link a short while ago.

Friday 21st September 2007 22:50 Our satellite feed was restored a short while ago, later than had been forecast. Outgoing mail will start to move shortly. We apologize for the delay in getting service restored.

Friday 21st September 2007 21:37 Our bandwidth provider has isolated the equipment failure at their teleport that has brought down our satellite feed. They hope to have replacement equipment installed within 30 minutes. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Friday 21st September 2007 20:01 Our link to Maun remains down. BTC now admit that other customers are experiencing problems and the ADSL link to Maun is down.

Friday 21st September 2007 19:15 Our bandwidth provider is still investigating the problem with our satellite link. In the meantime customers can use our proxy server to access the internet.

Friday 21st September 2007 18:50 Our satellite link went down a few minutes ago. We are contacting our bandwidth provider to ascertain the cause.

Friday 21st September 2007 14:45 BTC report that their link to Maun will be down for at least another 2 hours. Customers who wish to be notified once the link has been restored should leave their contact details with our help desk on 391-8444

Friday 21st September 2007 10:30 Our WAN link to Maun is down due to a fibre cut between Francistown and Maun. As yet there is no indication when the link will be restored.

Monday September 17th 2007 15:02 Our satellite link has just been restored.

Monday September 17th 2007 13:40 Our bandwidth provider is again experiencing interference
with their satellite. If the duration of the outage is extended then please use our proxy server
to access the internet. We apologize for this interruption to service.

Monday September 17th 2007 10:30 Our satellite provider has resolved their technical
problem and internet bandwidth has been restored.

Monday September 17th 2007 10:08 Our bandwidth provider is having a problem with
their satellite connectivity. They are invetigating to ascertain the cause of the
problem. Customers may wish to leave their details with our helpdesk so that we can
notify them when service is restored.

Customers may use our proxy server to browse the web but incoming mail will be delayed.

Tuesday 31st July 2007 18:20 BTC have identified and resolved the routing problem
that was preventing their network from talking to ours. Customers of other ISPs
using BTC's network, mainly those using ADSL, can now reach us. Our customers
can now resolve non-local Botswana domain names.

Tuesday 31st July 2007 17:10 We are still unable to reach BTC's name servers and
it appears that ADSL customers of other ISPs cannot reach our network through BTC's
internet feed. We are liasing with BTC to try to resolve the problem.

Tuesday 31st July 2007 10:33 BTC's name servers appear to be unreachable. It
appears that their link to British Telecom is down. We have notified BTC. ADSL
customers may experience slow speeds.

Monday 30th July 2007 15:57 We have lost our WAN links to Francistown and Phikwe
due to a BTC fibre cut near Serule. Voice traffic to those towns is, however,
unaffected.

Friday 27th July 2007 17:20 BTC's RSA links were restored at 17:10. Both their
ADSL service and their international private leased circuits seem to be back to normal.

Friday 27th July 2007 14:50 The problem with RSA data links is also affecting
BTC's ADSL service. Currently ADSL is slow and RSA sites are unreachable.
Customers with alternate wireless or leased line links to us should use those
to access RSA. Mail to and from ADSL customers is unaffected.

Friday 27th July 2007 14:05 A fire in RSA has damaged numerous international
voice and data connnection from Botswana. Clients affected should call our help
desk on 391-8444 for advice.

Thursday 5th July 2007 15:00 It appears that BTC is resetting some of our E1
lines which bring dilup users to us. About 40 users have been cut off so far.

Monday 11th June 2007 15:30 BTC's ADSL system was restored at circa 13:00 today.

Friday 8th June 2007 14:40 BTC have serious problems with their international
internet links. In particular ADSL is extremely slow especially when browsing
sites in the UK and Europe.

Friday 8th June 2007 14:35 BTC have resolved the problem with their Maun exchange.

Friday 8th June 2007 13:25 Customers calling our Maun POP are hearing a rapid
engaged tone indicating "exchange busy" even though we have many lines free. BTC
have been informed.

Thursday 7th June 2007 12:15 Most of our WAN links and customer circuits have
been restored, however afew customer links remin down and our wide area network (WAN)
link to Maun is still down.

Thursday 7th June 2007 11:59 Many of our customer links and our WAN links have
now gone down. It appears that BTC is experiencing some serious power problems. This
will affect many many services. We ahve just confirmed that BTC's name servers, which
are responsible for the .BW domain, are also down. Some time ago we wrote this page
describing some of the implications of DNS failure at BTC.

Thursday 7th June 2007 11:55 The link that brings our customers' ADSL traffic
back from BTC to ourselves is down. International browsing for our ADSL customers
will be unaffected but locally hosted websites and our mail servers will be
unavailable to our ADSL customers. We have reported the link to BTC.

Tuesday 29th May 2007 11:10 We have two dead lines on our swtchboard. The PABX normally answers after one ring to allow callers to dial the
extension they require. Until such time as BTC repairs these lines we would
ask our customers to please hang-up and redial if their call is not answered
within two rings.

Tuesday 22nd May 2007 07:55 BTC fixed their ADSL system at 21:30 last night.

Monday 21st May 15:45 2007 BTC's ADSL network is currently completely down country-
wide as far as we can tell. BTC, however, say that it will be up shortly.

Monday 21st May 12:30 2007 BTC's ADSL network continues to be unstable. BTC report
that they are working to correct the problem.

Monday 21st May 09:45 2007 BTC report that their ADSL service is working normally
again although it is not clear what their problem had been.

Monday 21st May 07:55 2007 BTC's ADSL network appears to be unstable. We have
notified BTC. They were unaware of the problem but have promised to investigate.

Friday 18th May 18:11 2007 Our internet feed has been restored. The problem was
caused by another ISP in Botswana with misconfigured equipment.

Friday 18th May 17:20 2007 Our satellite link is down. Our satellite provider is
investigating.

Wednesday 16th May 2007 17:00 BTC have an exchange problem in Tlokweng. This
will affect ADSL customers in that area.

Wednesday 9th May 2007 15:35 BTC finally restored our E1 link from MSU1 a
few minutes ago - over 25 hours since it was reported to them. Customers in
the catchment area of that exchange may revert to using the original dial-in
number or continue with the alternative 316-6175.

Tuesday 8th May 2007 15:00 BTC have still not restored our E1 link from
MSU1. Customers who cannot dial in on 365-7600 are requested to use 316-6175
If you would like help in changing the dial-in number then please call our
help desk on 391-8444.

Tuesday 8th May 2007 13:50 Customers dialing into us from the area
server by BTC's MSU1 exchange (including the main Mall) are getting
a busy tone even though we have many lines free. BTC has been notified.

Monday 30th April 2007 08:14 Our satellite link has been restored.

Monday 30th April 2007 07:55 Our satellite link is down again. Our satellite
provider is investigating.

Sunday 29th April 2007 19:05 Our satellite link was restored at 18:50

Sunday 29th April 2007 17:30 Our satellite link is down again. Our satellite
provider blames interference from a terrestrial source and is trying to
identify its location.

Saturday 28th April 2007 10:00 BTC have repaired their fibre-cut. ADSL and leased-line
services are back to normal.

Saturday 28th April 2007 08:51 Botswana Telecoms has suffered a fibre-cut which is
affecting adsl customers and leased line customers. Our ADSL customers are unable to
access our mail servers and web-sites directly however they can access those services
by dialup or via other ISP's ADSL connections! Customers are encouraged to call our
help desk on 391-8444 for assistance with dialing in to collect their mail or if they
would like to be notified once BTC has restored their services.

Friday 27th April 2007 08:10 Our Satellite feed is back up.

Friday 27th April 2007 07:45 Our Satellite internet link is down. We are contacting
our satellite provider

Thursday 26th April 2007 15:30 Following complaints frome ADSL customers in Maun
we have ascertained that they have transmission problems in Maun. These may affect
ADSL and dialup customers there.

Tues 25th April 2007 08:10 Some customers may have had difficulty browsing the
the internet or collecting their mail overnight. The problem has now been resolved.
We apologize for the inconvenience.

Wed 18th April 2007 11:55 We have received notice from our satellite provider of
interference caused by signals directed against the satellite we are using. This
may cause delays in accessing the internet. We apologise for this.

Tues 17th April 2007 08:00 BTC's ADSL service is back up again. Their DNS servers, which
serve the .BW domain and which had also gone down, are now back up.

Tues 17th April 2007 07:50 BTC's ADSL service is completely down. They are working
to try to restore services. Our ADSL customers can still dial in to us to pick up their
mail. If you would like to be notified once service is restored then please contact our
support desk on 391-8444.

Thursday 29th March 2007 16:24 Internet connectivity will be down for a few minutes at
this time for the next few days owing to solar alignment with the satellite providing
our connectivity. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Friday 23rd March 2007 14:30 BTC have warned of an interruption to ADSL service from
18:00 to 20:00 on Sun 25th March for customers served by their MSU1 exchange (situated
at Megaleng).

Wednesday 21st March 2007 07:40 BTC have suffered a transmission failure to Maun. Our
WAN link to Maun is down although ADSL traffic there is no worse than normal.

Friday 16th March 2007 15:50 The problem with BTC's ADSL appears to have been resolved.
We remind our customers that they should report any problems with ADSL to our help desk
on 391-8444 so that we can investigate and escalate to BTC when appropriate.

Friday 16th March 2007 15:20 We have received isolated reports of problems with BTC's
ADSL service in Gaborone West. BTC have confirmed the possibility of a problem at their
MSU2 exchange. We advise ADSL customers to avoid disconnecting their ADSL connection in
case they are unable to reconnect.

Wednesday 14th March 2007 21:45 There is a power failure affecting a large part of
Gaborone West. Our servers are running on backup power but our services to our customers
are unaffected. Our dialin lines may be affected if BTC's subexchanges lose power.
Botswana Power Corporation do not yet know the cause of the failure although a powerful
electrical storm passed through a short while ago.

Tuesday 13th March 2007 12:29 BTC is experiencing some tranmission problems on their
link to Francistown. At present our Francistown customers and our Phikwe POP are
unaffected but some of our leased line customers in Phikwe are affected.

Tuesday 28th February 2007 08:05 BTC has suffered a transmission failure to Maun. Both
ADSL and voice lines seem to be down. Our data link, however, is unaffacted so Maun customers
can still browse the web, send emails etc.

Monday 26th February 2007 17:10 Our WAN link to Maun is going up and down. BTC blame
instability in their link between Francistown and Maun. They claim it will not affect
Maun ADSL users.

Tuesday 13th February 2007 09:45 ADSL services to customers in Mogoditshane have been
interrupted by a BTC fibre cut. BTC are workijng to restore the link.

Monday 12th February 2007 12:00 BTC have restored our lines.

Monday 12th February 2007 11:20 Two of our digital E1 lines comprising 60 lines and
one of our ISDN lines comprising 30 lines have just gone down. We have notified BTC
Info Botswana customers dialing 365-7600 will be unaffected as the traffic is overflowing to other
E1 lines however our Global Internet Access (GIA) customers dialing 365-6400 and our ISDN
customers are unable to dial-in.

GIA customers can call our help desk on 391-8444 for instructions on making a "proxy login"
via our Info Botswana number. ISDN customers can also call our help desk for information on alternative
connection procedures.

Sunday 11th February 2007 15:45 BTC suffered a major fibre cut between
Orange and their MSU2 exchange at 11:40. Most of our customer leased lines were
affected together with our WAN link to Maun and our links to BTC's ADSL network.BTC has just finished restoring connectivity.

Wednesday 31st January 2007 11:50 Our WAN links to Phikwe are down due to a BTC
transmission failure. BTC is attempting to rectify the fault.

Saturday 27th January 2007 10:55 BTC's ADSL service in Maun is down. The problem seems
now to extend to voice lines to Maun also as we are currently unable to contact our
customers there. BTC confirms the problem with ADSL and says a technician is working
on it.

Thursday 25th January 2007 17:49 BTC have finished their repairs to the ADSL system. Our preliminary
tests indicate that they have been successful and mail is now flowing normally.

Thursday 25th January 2007 14:28 BTC hope to rectify the problem with ADSL that is causing problems

with some mail traffic later today. They will be bringing the ADSL system down for a couple of
minutes at about 18:00.

Wednesday 24th January 2007 18:09 We have identified that a major problem affecting ADSL customers
trying to send large mails is due to a problem with BTC's processing of ADSL traffic. We have
confirmed this with other ISPs and we have notified BTC.

Wednesday 24th January 2007 17:42 We note that the DNS for the botsnet.bw domain failed completely
for the period 10:38 until 13:04 today. Their DNS had been broken for a period of days but the
records finally expired this morning. They have since repaired their DNS but email sent during the
stated period will have been returned and so should be re-sent.

Thursday 18th January 2007 15:02 Large areas of South Africa are suffering power cuts. As a
consequence more and more RSA sites, especially many which are hosted in Joburg, are becoming

unreachable.

Tuesday 16th January 2007 14:00 We have received a notification from our satellite provider
about difficulties accessing some sites in USA. They blame problems within the internet backbone in
Europe (our internet feed lands in Europe and travels to USA by undersea cable). They say the
problem should be resolved "in a couple of days". They also warn of continuing problems accessing
sites in Asia due to the earthquake which disrupted communications in Taiwan two weeeks ago.

Tuesday 16th January 2007 07:55 Although power was restored to Maun our link has been down
overnight due to a BTC problem. We understand that their network in maun has serious problems.
We are attempting to escalate the problem with BTC management.

Monday 15th January 2007 17:30 Our Maun line is down due to a sustained power cut in Maun.
Monday 15th January 2007 09:18 The power to our Maun office has been down for some time (this
is unconnected with the BTC line problem there). Our UPS is holding up and BPC say they will
soon have power restored.

Monday 15th January 2007 07:55 Our link to Maun is going up and down. BTC say their network
in Maun is unstable and are investigating.

Friday 12th January 2007 08:22 BTC's ns1.btc.bw nameserver is now working properly.

Thursday 11th January 2007 17:45 We see that one of BTC's name servers - ns1.btc.bw
[168.167.168.34] has been down for the last two and a half hours. (The server itself is
up but the DNS service is down.) This shouldn't affect our ADSL customers unless they
have manually configured a single DNS server. In such cases please add a second DNS
server eg 168.167.253.21

Friday 22nd December 2006 15:20 Our links to Francistown and Phikwe are down due to a power cut in Francistown.

Friday 22nd December 2006 13:10 Our Maun link was restored just before 13:00.

Friday 22nd December 2006 11:55 Our WAN link to Maun went down shortly after 10:00 this morning. BTC say they have a transmission failure but don't have a time by which it will be fixed.

Thursday 21st December 2006 14:12 We were premature in announcing the complete repair of BTC's fibre cut. Their link to Maun has gone down again. BTC hope to have the link fully operational in about 20 mins.

Thursday 21st December 2006 13:45 BTC's links to Maun and Phikwe were restored about 10 minutes ago. We are now able to reach our ADSL customers in Maun.

Thursday 21st December 2006 09:32 There is a BTC cable cut near Palapye. Our WAN links to Phikwe and Maun are currently affected and BTC's ADSL service to Maun is down.

Thursday 21st December 2006 09:10 BTC has re-routed the Maun ADSL traffic and the service should be working properly later today. It is unclear if our Maun leased-line traffic will always share the fate of the ADSL traffic although it appears it will often follow the same route.

Thursday 21st December 2006 08:10 BTC has acknowledged that there is an ongoing problem with ADSL services to Maun. They blame the Orapa-Maun radio link which currently carries the Maun ADSL traffic. The link is scheduled for replacement before April 2007. As far as we are aware this link also carries our Maun leased-line traffic and is responsible for the poor performance of that service.

Monday 18th December 2006 17:15 The ADSL service in Maun went down at approx 16:45. We are notifying BTC.

Monday 18th December 2006 10:55 Our links to Francistown and Phikwe are down due to a power failure in central Francistowen.

Friday 15th December 2006 17:05 Although BTC earlier told us that the Phakalane fibre was repaired it turns out that BTC are still working on it and some customers have only just been reconnected.

Friday 15th December 2006 14:40 The Phakalane fibre-cut was repaired just after lunch.

Friday 15th December 2006 08:50 It appears that the current ADSL failure in Phakalane is due to a BTC fibre-cut. The link went down in the early hours of the morning.

Thursday 14th December 2006 09:10 BTC's link to Francistown came back at about 08:05. The link to Maun remains down apparently due to a widespread power cut in Maun.

Thursday 14th December 2006 07:55 BTC's link to Francistown went down at 22:30 last night. Their link to Maun went down at 06:00 this morning.

Tuesday 12th December 2006 15:10 BTC's link to Maun was unstable from 7th Dec until yesterday 11th Dec. We haven't had an official explanation from BTC but their services to Maun seem to be fine today.

Thursday 7th December 2006 16:00 BTC's link to Maun appears to have become unstable again. BTC acknowledged a problem a short while ago but were under the impression it had been resolved. As far as we can tell there is still a major problem and the link is currently down. BTC ADSL circuits to Maun appear to be affected as well as other data links. We jave notified BTC.

Wednesday 6th December 2006 13:07 The overloading of our DNS servers also caused a problem preventing some users logging in. The problem has been resolved and we apologize for the inconvenience.

Wednesday 6th December 2006 12:20 We apologize for a brief loss in service that appears to have been caused by unprecedented traffic directed at our nameservers. We are investigating to try to avoid a repetition.

Tuesday 4th December 2006 20:15 Our Maun link came back up at 21:07 however exactly an hour later it went down again. BTC confirm that the Ghanzi-Maun link appears unstable. Currently the line is up.

Tuesday 4th December 2006 14:08 Our WAN link to Maun is down. BTC confirm that there is a general problem affecting Maun but have no further information at present.

Tuesday 4th December 2006 12:20 BTC restored their link to Francistown at 12:15

Tuesday 4th December 2006 11:30 BTC now say that their fibre cut will have been repaired by 15:00 today.

Tuesday 4th December 2006 07:55 Our data links to Francistown and Phikwe are down due to a serious fibre cut in Francistown. Voice, data, cellular and ADSL traffic to Francistown and various other destinations is affected. Some voice and cellular traffic is being carried by alternative routes but congestion is likely. BTC are working on the cable and hope to have it repaired by 10:00am.

Monday 4th December 2006 13:57 BTC's ADSL service in the North of the country was restored at about 12:47. Their links to Francistown and Phikwe also came back up before 13:00 as promised.

Monday 4th December 2006 12:35 Our WAN links to Francistown and Phikwe are down. BTC confirm that they have a major problem. They hope to have the links back up by 13:00 today.

Monday 4th December 2006 09:10 BTC confirms that they have a problem with the ADSL service in Maun, Francistown and Phikwe. ADSL customers are free to call our national helpdesk on 391-8444 if they would like to be notified once BTC has restored service.

Monday 4th December 2006 08:40 The ADSL service in Maun seems to be down. We are trying to contact BTC.

Tuesday 28th November 2006 17:22 BTC confirm the problem with our Maun line and are investigating.

Tuesday 28th November 2006 17:05 Our links to F'Town and Phikwe have been restored but maun still remains down.

Tuesday 28th November 2006 16:25 BTC have suffered a transmission failure near Palapye. Our links to Francistown, Phikwe and Maun are therefore down.

Monday 27th November 2006 19:25 The last of our WAN links (Maun) was restored at 19:11. All BTC systems including ADSL seem to be working now so we are returning our status page to green.

Monday 27th November 2006 19:00 BTC's nameservers came back up at 18:45.

Monday 27th November 2006 18:10 BTC has now lost connectivity to Francistown, Maun and Phikwe as far as we can tell.

Monday 27th November 2006 17:40 We note that BTC's nameservers have also disappeared from the internet. This indicates a larger problem affecting not just their ADSL network but their internet access also. There are currently no Botswana nameservers available with records for all Botswana domains. This means that it is impossible to reach most Botswana domains.
We have placed a note explaining the impact and nature of the failure of BTC's DNS here

Monday 27th November 2006 17:30 BTC's ADSL network appears to be down. We are trying to contact the appropriate staff in BTC.

Monday 27th November 2006 12:05 Our WAN links to Maun, Francistown and Phikwe are down. BTC say they have experienced a transmission failure between Gaborone and Palapye. Customers, if they wish, can call our helpdesk on 391-8444 if they would like to be notified once service has been restored.

Friday 24th November 2006 17:25 Our WAN link to Maun is down. BTC say they have a transmission failure in Maun and are working to restore service.

Wednesday 22nd November 2006 15:15 Our WAN links to Francistown and Phikwe are down due to a power failure in Francistown. Customers are welcome to call our helpdesk on 391-8444 if they would like to be notified once power has been restored.

Monday 20th November 2006 10:30 Customers are having problems connecting to our POP in Francistown. We are investigating the problem. On the meantime customers may leave their details with our helpdesk on 391-8444 or our Francistown office on 241-8686 and we will contact you once the situatin has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Tuesday 14th November 2006 14:40 Our WAN link to Maun has been restored.

Tuesday 14th November 2006 14:30 Our WAN link to Maun is down due to a power failure there.

Tuesday 7th November 2006 08:30 Early this morning BTC restored international ADSL connectivity which was lost yesterday due to a fibre cut in RSA.

Monday 6th November 2006 14:40 BTC have resolved the problem with the frame-relay link for our ADSL traffic.

Monday 6th November 2006 09:30 We have noticed that the link to our network from our ADSL customers has become slow due to a problem with the BTC frame-relay link. We have notified BTC.

Friday 3rd November 2006 10:50 Our WAN links to Francistown, Maun and Phikwe are down. BTC say they are having trouble with their links to the North of the country and are investigating.

Wednesday 1st November 2006 07:55 Our WAN link to Maun has been unstable thoughout the night. We are trying to report it to BTC.

Saturday 14th October 2006 12:50 Although our satellite link has been restored it remains unstable.

Saturday 14th October 2006 08:55 Our satellite provider has a major systems failure. They estimate that it may take 3 to 4 hours to repair. Internet browsing will be down until they finish their repairs. Browsing of local mail sites and websites hosted by members of the Botswana Internet Exchange (including gov.bw) will be unaffected. Customers may call our help desk on 391-8444 if they would like to be notified once service has been restored. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thursday 12th October 2006 18:20 We have just received an email from BTC notifying us of an emergency shutdown of the ADSL network scheduled for 1800-1900 today. We apologize for the short notice but their email was only sent at 17:26 today and there was no phone call.

Thursday 5th October 2006 18:00 We understand from BTC that they have resolved their problem with ADSL authentication.

Thursday 5th October 2006 17:05 Following problems we have noticed with a number of our customers' ADSL links BTC have advised us that they have a problem with the ADSL country-wide. We advise our customers not to turn off their ADSL modems as they may not be able to re-connect.

Tuesday 3rd October 16:25 An equipment failure at our satellite provider led to a brief interruption to internet traffic. They assure us that the problem has now been resolved.

Thursday 28th September 10:15 BTC have restored the link bringing our customers' ADSL traffic.

Wednesday 27th September 09:45 The BTC link that brings our customers' ADSL traffic to our websites and mailservers is down. Our customers will not be able to send or receive mail from our servers or browse locally hosted website. We have notified BTC.

Thursday 21st September 07:10 It appears that the entire ADSL system went down at 1:30 this morning. We have notified BTC.

Wednesday 13th September 09:50 BTC have fixed their routing tables and local ADSL traffic should route correctly now.

Wednesday 13th September 09:30 We have confirmed with other ISPs that they have the same problem with BTC's routing of ADSL traffic and we have advised BTC accordingly.

Wednesday 13th September 08:20 We have noticed that BTC is routing our ADSL customers' traffic out to the ineternet instead of directly to ourselves. As a consequence mail and local website traffic will be delayed. We have notified BTC.

Monday 4th September 15:45 BTC have repaired their ADSL system. As far as we can tell it is now functioning normally.

Monday 4th September 15:30 BTC's ADSL system remains down. They confirm that they have a hardware problem but have no estimate of when a fix will be available. We invite our post office customers to contact our help desk on 391-8444 if they would like advice on alternative ways to retrieve their mail.

Monday 4th September 14:00 BTC's ADSL system is down. We have notified BTC.

Thursday 31st August 13:30 Woops I spoke too soon. There are still errors on the link that brings our customers' ADSL traffic to us. We have reported this to BTC who have confirmed the problem.

Thursday 31st August 08:10 Our link to BTC has been restored. The ADSL service is back to normal.

Thursday 31st August 07:50 The link that brings our ADSL customers' traffic to us is down. Yet again our customers will be unable to access our web sites and mail servers. We have notified BTC

Saturday 26th August 15:45 Our ADSL customers are unable to connect to the internet via BTC although they can connect to web sites we are hosting and to our mail servers. We have notified BTC.

Wednesday 16th August 09:30 BTC have confirmed they have experienced a major failure affecting numerous leased line customers.

Wednesday 16th August 09:20 We have just lost leased-line connectivity to many of our customers. We are asking BTC to investigate.

Tuesday 15th August 16:30 Our Maun link seems to have been stable since approx 12:30.

Tuesday 15th August 11:40 Our link to Maun is still unstable i.e. mostly down. Now that it's no longer getting dark BTC say that they have a more general problem affecting multiple customers and they are trying to re-route their traffic.

Monday 14th August 17:00 Our WAN link to Maun is again unstable. BTC say they can't investigate it as it's getting dark!

Wednesday 9th August 12:30 Once again users of our BTC ADSL service are unable to access our mail or web servers although other ISP's ADSL users will have no problem. We have notified BTC of the cause of the problem.

Wednesday 9th August 08:55 BTC have lost connectivity to the North of the country. Our links to our POPs in Francistown, Phikwe and Maun are therefore down. There is no information, as yet, as to when the links will be repaired.

Friday 4th August 07:55 Our WAN link to Phikwe is down. BTC are sending a technician to address the fault.

Wednesday 2nd August 22:00 BTC have restored the ADSL link to our servers for our ADSL customers.

Wednesday 2nd August 16:50 BTC are working to fix the problem affecting our ADSL customers. Unfortunately their link to us has gone down completely now.

Wednesday 2nd August 15:35 There was a very brief interruption to our internet feed which our satellite provider blames on atmospheric conditions at their earth station. Our feed seems to have been restored now.

Wednesday 2nd August 13:45 We are still experiencing problems with the link for our ADSL customers to our network. We are working with BTC to try to identify the source of problem.

Wednesday 2nd August 13:20 Our WAN link to Maun had been unstable since this morning. BTC say they are working to fix the line.

Tuesday 1st August 17:30 Once again many users of our BTC ADSL service are unable to access our mail or web servers. We suspect the problem is due to a routing mistake at BTC and we are trying to get them to resolve the problem.

Tuesday 25th July 2006 16:00 BTC have informed us of a planned maintenance session which will affect all their ADSL links from 12:00 midnight tonight until 01:00am

Friday 21st July 2006 08:05 Our WAN link to Francistown has been restored.

Friday 21st July 2006 08:00 Our WAN link to Francistown went down a few minutes ago. We are contacting BTC.

Wednesday 12th July 2006 10:00 Botswana Power Corporation have notified us of an emergency power interruption planned for 08:00 am tomorrow July 13th and lasting for three hours. Internet and email services to customers will not be affected however our cyber cafe will not be operating.

Tuesday 11th July 2006 16:35 BTC has notified us of a problem with two of their sub-exchanges which service the Commerce Park and Kgale areas. This may lead to congestion problems for ADSL customers in those areas.

Friday 30th June 2006 12:00 We have confirmed with other ISPs that they are also having major problems with the BTC ADSL service.

Friday 30th June 2006 10:55 There seems to be a problem with the BTC ADSL service again. As far as we can see the whole service is down. We are contacting BTC.

Thursday 29th June 2006 17:10 BTC have resolved the problem with their ADSL service that was preventing only our ADSL customers from accessing our local sites and their email.

Thursday 29th June 2006 14:40 Users of our BTC ADSL service are unable to browse locally hosted websites or retrieve their mail using POP even though other ISP's users of the BTC ADSL can access our sites and pop mail from our servers. We have determined that the problem is with the BTC ADSL service and have notified BTC.

Wednesday 21st June 2006 15:20 Our internet feed has been restored.

Wednesday 21st Jun 2006 15:15 Our internet feed via Europe is down due a temporary problem with our satellite provider. They hope to have service restored shortly.

Thursday 15th June 2006 14:00 Our link to Maun is down. BTC confirm they have a problem with their links towards Maun and are working on the problem.

Monday 12th June 2006 08:45 BTC have restored our Maun link.

Monday 12th June 2006 08:10 BTC confirm a fault in their network North of Palapye affecting our line to Maun.

Monday 12th June 2006 01:30 Our leased line to Maun is down. We have notified BTC but there is no one in the relevant department to deal with the fault.

Wednesday 31st May 2006 14:25 Customers in some parts of Gaborone are hearing a busy signal when dialing our 365-7600 number even though we have over 50 lines free. We are notifying BTC.

Saturday 20th May 2006 18:40 BTC restored our lines to Francistown and Phikwe at 18:20.

Saturday 20th May 2006 12:10 Our lines to Francistown and Phikwe are down again. BTC are aware of the problem and say their technicians are working on it. They have no estimate of when services will be restored.

Wednesday 17th May 2006 21:30 Our lines to Francistown and Phikwe have been stable since they were restored by BTC shortly after 17:00 today. We remind our customers who may have been dialing an alternate number during this time to revert to the old number to avoid unnecessary phone charges.

Wednesday 17th May 2006 11:25 Our lines to Francistown and Phikwe are still down. BTC say they are working on a repair but have no estimate when this will accomplished.

Wednesday 17th May 2006 07:50 Our lines to Francistown and Phikwe are down due to a BTC transmission problem near Palapye. We advise customers from those towns to connect using one of our Gaborone numbers (eg 365-7600) until such time as BTC manages to repair the fault.

Tuesday 16th May 2006 10:50 BTC restored our Maun link at 09:50. The line has been stable since then.

Tuesday 16th May 2006 08:00 BTC have still not restored our link to Maun. They say they had a switching problem in Maun which they erroneously thought had been fixed.

Monday 15th May 2006 13:40 Our link to Maun is still down. BTC are working on the problem.

Monday 15th May 2006 11:01 We are suffering a massive spam attack from Google/Gmail. Mail to and from Google or Gmail addresses will be delayed until Gmail has managed to stop the attack.

Monday 15th May 2006 10:30 There is a problem with our WAN link to Maun, we have contacted BTC.

Thursday 2nd May 2006 08:50 There may be a brief interruption to our services this morning at 10:00 am due to emergency work being carried out by a contractor. We apologize for the inconvenience we will endeavour to ensure there is as little disruption as possible.

Thursday 27th April 2006 14:13 BTC has restored the ISDN line that was down.

Thursday 27th April 2006 13:40 Following a power cut that affected a large part of Gaborone West one of our ISDN lines is down. We are investigating the cause.

Thursday 20th April 2006 17:45 One of our E1 lines comprising 30 dial-in circuits is down. We have notified BTC. Global customers unable to login on 365-6400 are advised to make a "proxy login" by dialing one of our Info Botswana numers eg 365-7600 and using their full email address as the login name eg mphok@global.bw Please call our helpdesk on 391-8444 for rather more intelligible instructions.

Tuesday 18th April 2006 08:00 Our WAN link to Maun is down. BTC say they are having transmission problems and are working to restore service.

Tuesday 11th April 2006 13:31 Our international internet feed has just been restored.

Tuesday 11th April 2006 13:25 Our international internet feed has just gone down due to a problem with our satellite provider. They hope to have service restored in a few minutes. Locally hosted websites including those hosted by members of the BINX are unaffected.

Tuesday 4th April 2006 09:55 There has been a problem with one of our mailservers - smtp.info.bw. This has now been resolved. There is an ongoing problem with our Proxy Server proxy.info.bw. This should be resolved shortly. If you are experiencing problems with either of these services then please call our helpdesk on 391-8444 for assistance. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Monday 20th March 2006 08:10 Our WAN link to Maun is down. BTC have been notified.

Sunday 25th February 2006 21:50 The last of the BW nameservers came back up at 21:35

Sunday 25th February 2006 21:20 The first of the Botswana (.bw) nameservers came back on-line at 20:33. A second one came back at 21:10 The third one is still down.

Sunday 25th February 2006 19:00 Incredibly BTC say this was a planned power outage. For the technically-minded this proves that despite the different class 'C' networks all of the BW nameservers are in one physical location at BTC. The only other nameserver which, according to the root nameservers,has records for BW, is a caching-only nameserver in South Africa. It will have records for frequently-used Botswana domains only.
BTC cannot say when the power will be restored.

Sunday 25th February 2006 18:50 All of the Botswana name servers have gone down again. This will create major problems for "dot-BW" websites and will create delays in mail for many local domains. We are notifying BTC.

Thursday 23rd February 2006 11:40 Our links to Francistown and Phikwe went down about 10 mins ago. We have notified BTC.

Thursday 23rd February 2006 07:55 The first of BTC's name servers came back online at 02:32 today. All mail should now have been delivered.

Wednesday 22nd February 2006 20:59 All of BTC's name servers are down. The last of them went down at 20:32. Many sites in Botswana will be unreachable from the outside world and there will be delays for mail. We have notified BTC.

Tuesday 14th February 2006 15:55 Our leased line to Maun is down. BTC have been notified.

Saturday 11th February 2006 12:35 The problem with one of our E1 lines on the 3657600 number has been addressed by BTC. Users are not currently getting a busy tone but the problem may return especially for users served by BTC's MSU-1 exchange in Khama Crescent.

Friday 10th February 2006 09:10 Customers are hearing a busy signal when dialing our 3657600 number even though we have many lines free. BTC has been notified. We advise our Info Botswana customers that they can make a "proxy-logon" through our Global POP on 365-6400 as long as they give their username in the form "userxyz@info.bw". Please do *not* use this syntax when checking your mail! For help please call our help desk on 391-8444

Tuesday 7th February 2006 12:05 There has been a problem with our Gaborone email number 391-8213 for the past two hours. The problem has now been resolved. We apologise for the inconvenience.

Thursday 2nd February 2006 18:28 BTC have been continuing to work on our leased line to Maun. The line has been up and down several times this afternoon. We apologize for the incovenience.

Tuesday 31st January 2006 16:00 Our service to customers in Maun has been very slow due to a problem with our BTC leased-line. BTC hope to have the problem fixed by tomorrow.

Thursday 12th January 2006 12:15 Our links to Francistown and Phikwe have been restored.

Thursday 12th January 2006 11:20 The power cut in Francistown is affecting all of Francistown. BPC have no estimate as to when power will be restored. Affected customers are advised to connect via Gaborone on 365-7600.

Thursday 12th January 2006 11:09 Due to a power failure in Francistown our WAN links to Francistown and Phikwe are down.

Thursday 16th December 2005 16:00 Our WAN link to Maun is down. BTC say they are having some transmission problems and the don't know when the links to Maun will be restored.

Monday 12th December 2005 12:00 BTC have a major problem with their management system and are therefore unable to fix the problem with our E1 line at present.

Monday 12th December 2005 08:15 There is a problem with one of our BTC-supplied digital E1 lines affecting 30 dial-in lines on the 365-7600 number. We have notified BTC. At present it is not affecting our customers but unless BTC act quickly customers will be getting a busy tone even though all of our lines are not in use.

Monday 12th December 2005 07:45 Our leased line to Maun is again down. This time the problem is with a BTC microwave link at Mopipi. BTC hope to have the service restored in about 30 minutes.

Sunday 11th December 2005 08:30 Our leased line to Maun is down due to scheduled BPC works affecting many lines. BPC say power will be restored at 14:00

Monday 5th December 2005 15:20 Our WAN links to Francistown and Phikwe are down. We have notified BTC.

Friday 2nd December 2005 11:35 Links to networks hosted via BTC's international links including all their adsl customers and, more importantly, all the servers able to answer DNS queries for the BW domain are temporarily unavailable. (BTC BGP route flaps). Some Botswana sites even those not hosted via BTC will be unavailable.

Friday 25th November 2005 12:05 Our satellite feed has been much improved but there is a possibility of further instability.

Friday 25th November 2005 08:20 There seems to be a problem with our satellite internet feed. We have asked our satelite provideer to investigate.

Tuesday 22nd November 2005 15:30 Our line to Maun is still down. BTC say they are still struggling to restore service.

Monday 21th November 2005 16:15 Our leased line to maun is down. BTC say they have a major problem with their fibre. There is no forecast as to when service will be restored.

Monday 21th November 2005 11:15 Another of our E1 lines carrying 30 dial-in circuits has just gone down. This brings to 90 the number of our lines that are down. We have notified BTC.

Sunday 20th November 2005 12:00 One of our ISDN PRI lines and another digital line providing 30 dial-in circuits are down. BTC have been notified. ISDN customers who need access are requested to call our help desk (391-8444) for instructions about a contingency plan we have activated to provide them with access. Global customers who are unable to connect can login using a "proxy logon" by dialing Info Botswana number (eg 365-7600 or 391-8263) and logging in using the syntax: username@global.bw
We remind our customers that we do have an "email-only" number, 391-8213, which always has lines free.

Sunday 20th November 2005 11:45 Info customers are having trouble accessing the POP server for the info.bw domain - mail.info.bw - in order to retrieve their mail. We are working to restore this service.

Thursday 3rd November 2005 16:15 Large parts of Gaborone are suffering brief power interruptions and more sustained brown-outs. BPC say they do not know the cause but are investigating. Our systems are unaffected but we have noticed that a number of our dialup and leased line customers are affected.

Thursday 3rd November 2005 15:25 Our lines to Phikwe and Francistown are down due to a power failure in F'Town. Customers in those towns are advised to dial one of our Gaborone numbers (eg 365-7600) or to log a call with our help desk (392-8444) so that they can be called back once service has been restored.

Wednesday 2nd November 2005 08:40 One of our digital E1 lines providing 30 dialup circuits has been periodically giving a busy tome even though there are many lines free. BTC say the cause is a software problem which is affecting many of their exchanges.

Thursday 15th September 2005 14:00 Our satellite provider is experiencing problems with their some of their internet links. Browsing to some sites will be slow. It may help to use our proxy server until such tme as service is fully restored.

Tuesday 6th September 2005 11:40 We have been sustaining a massive spam attack since last night. Our servers are coping but there may be some delays in processing incoming mail.

Monday 5th September 2005 09:10 We remind our customers that our satellite bandwidth provider will be carrying out scheduled maintenance on Tuesday 6th Sep from 04:00 to 05:00. Internet access may be disrupted during that period. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Friday 2nd September 20054 19:00 Our links to Francistown and Phikwe are down due to a power failure in Francistown. We hope that power will be restored in about 20 mins.

Wednesday 31st August 2005 08:20 Our satellite bandwidth provider has notified us of scheduled antenna maintenance which they will be carrying out at their teleport on Tuesday 6th Sep from 04:00 to 05:00. During that period internet access will be interrupted. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Friday 26th August 2005 17:25 Our leased lines to Francistown, Phikwe and Maun have just gone down. We are trying to convince BTC that they have a problem.

Tuesday 18th August 2005 17:55 Once again BTC have a problem with their exchange in Maun. Our line to Maun is currently down. BTC hope to have it up shortly.

Friday 12th August 2005 07:55 BTC have had a problem with their exchange in Maun. A number of customer lines have been affected. Our link, which had been down for 50 mins has now been restored.

Friday 5th August 2005 08:50 Our link to Maun is down again. BTC say they have a problem going towards Maun. They have no further details.

Wednesday 27th July 2005 11:20 Our link to Maun is down. BTC say they have a problem with their services between Mahalapye and Maun.

Friday 22nd July 2005 15:30 Our links to Phikwe are down due to a power failure affecting a large are of Phikwe.

Friday 22nd July 2005 15:00 Our customer leased lines have been restored.

Friday 22nd July 2005 12:55 BTC has experienced a major problem in the link between their MSU-1 and MSU-2 exchanges. Many of our customer leased lines are down. BTC have no further information as yet and no projected time for restoration of services.
Our dial-in lines and internet feed are unaffected.

Tuesday 5th July 2005 16:32 BTC has just fixed our Global E1 line.

Tuesday 5th July 2005 15:05 BTC have still not restored our Global E1 line. They say they are working on the problem but have not yet identified where the fault is with the line.

Tuesday 5th July 2005 10:48 One of our Global E1 dialin lines using 365-6400 is down. We have reported it to BTC. Global customers wishing to connect using a Gaborone number are advised to call our help desk on 391-8444 for instructions on how to perform a "proxy logon".

Monday 4th July 2005 18:10 BTC have restored connectivity to their name servers. They confirm that there was a problem but cannot provide any details.

Monday 4th July 2005 17:45 We note that all three of the BTC-hosted Botswana Name Servers are down. This will cause delays to mail for some local domains and may make some Botswana websites unreachable. We are attempting to notify BTC.

Thursday 30th June 2005 11:30 Our WAN link to Phikwe is down due to a power failure there.

Wednesday 29th June 2005 13:55 One of our Global E1 lines is down. We have reported it to BTC. Global customers wishing to connect using a Gaborone number are advised to call our help desk on 391-8444 for instructions on how to perform a "proxy logon".

Tuesday 28th June 2005 13:40 A number of our leased lines to customers are down. BTC say they are working on lines in the Commerce Park area.

Wednesday 22nd June 2005 13:00 Our lines to Francistown and Phikwe are down due to a power filaure in Francistown.

Monday 20th June 2005 10:04 Although our services using our WAN links to Maun and Fancistown are now working properly, we note that BTC still has serious congestion problems from some exchanges. In particular it is almost impossible to dial Maun and Francistown from Gaborone West, via BTC's MSU2 exchange while calls made by cell phone (Mascom) and routed via MSU1 are successful.

Monday 20th June 2005 08:10 There is a power cut affecting a large part of Gaborone West. All of our services are working normally and BTC say their exchanges are unaffected.

Monday 20th June 2005 08:05 BTC say that they repaired their fibre cut but there has been a second cut. Our leased lines to Phikwe and Francistown are still down.

Monday 20th June 2005 00:05 BTC have still not repaired their fibre cut. They now say they hope to have the job done before morning.

Sunday 19th June 2005 14:00 Our leased lines to Francistown and Phikwe are down. BTC say they have a fibre problem going North. They expect service to be resumed by the end of today.

Wednesday 15th June 2005 14:00 Our line to Phikwe is down. BTC say they have a fibre failure in Phikwe and are working on the problem.

Sunday 12th June 2005 09:00 Our lines to Francistown and Phikwe are down due to a power failure in Francistown.

Wednesday 8th June 2005 14:55 BTC are having problems with their frame-relay links to the North of the country. Our WAN links to Francistown, Maun and Phikwe are therefore going up and down. BTC do not have a time when the problem will be resolved.

Wednesday 25th May 2005 16:43 Our Global dial in number 3656400 is down. BTC have been notified. Global customers can still logon by dialling 3657600 and giving their full domain name as the username eg fred22@info.bw

Thursday 19th May 2005 08:10 We received the same DOS again. Our feed is now working properly.

Wednesday 18th May 2005 08:00 We are investigating a problem with our network that may be due to a denial of service attack.

Friday 13th May 2005 11:35 Our links to our POPs in Francistown, Phikwe and Maun recently went down. BTC say they are experiencing transmission problems to the North of the country.

Monday 2nd May 2005 12:30 Although some customers may have heard a network busy tone when dialing our 365-7600 number earlier this was due to exchange his was due to exchange congestion at BTC. All of our digital lines are working properly and we have plenty of free lines.

Thursday 28th April 15:15 Three of our E1 lines have been reset within the last ten minutes cutting off over seventy users. We have notified BTC.

Tuesday 19th April 08:45 Two of the three .BW nameservers are still down.

Friday 15th April 08:55 Two of BTC's nameservers responsible for Botswana are still unreachable. BTC say they are aware of the problem.

Thursday 14th April 08:45 Two of the three nameservers responsible for resolving names in the ".BW" namespace have been unreachable since late last night. If the third one goes down there will be major problems for Botrswana domains. We have notified BTC.

Friday 1st April 08:00 Our leased line to Francistown is down. We have notified BTC.

Thursday 31st March 15:03 BTC has justrestored our line to Maun.

Thursday 31st March 09:00 Our BTC line to Maun is still down. We are chasing BTC to get it repaired. We request that our non-postoffice customers dial in to our Francistown or Gaborone POPs. Customers should feel free to call our central help desk (391-8444) and leave their phone numbers if they would like to be notified once the service has been restored. Post office customers should contact our help desk if they would like to make alternative arrangements to receive mail. We apologize to opur customers for the inconvenience.

Wednesday 30th March 08:05 Maun Data Circuit is down,Customers in Maun will not will not be able to connect. BTC has been informed.

FFriday 11th March 12:21 Customers in some parts of town are getting a busy signal even though we have many lines free. BTC has been informed.

FFriday 11th March 08:45 BPC power has now been restored.

Friday 11th March 08:29 BTC have restored power at their exchange although they may have problems elsewhere.

Friday 11th March 08:05 There is a power cut affecting most of Gaborone (according to BPC), All of our systems are working fine but we notice that calls from BTC's main exchange are not coming through to us.

Thursday 10th March 14:08 From the pattern of dial-in usage we believe that there may, later, be problems for our customers based in the catchment area of BTC's MSU-1 exchange. We are contacting BTC to ask them to address this problem.

Tuesday 8th March 15:55 Our internet feed is back to normal.

Tuesday 8th March 15:49 There is a problem with our internet feed. We are investigating to determine the cause.

Thursday 3rd March 18:35 BTC have just reconnected our dial in lines.

Thursday 3rd March 17:55 At approximately 16:45 today BTC disconnected our 391-8263 dial-in number. This number serves 60 incoming lines. We believe that BTC carried out this disconnection in error as there had been no warning from them.
We have been trying to get BTC to reconnect the service but unfortunately the relevant BTC staff have either already finished work for the day or are not answering their cell phones. We will continue to try to get the service restored today.
We apologize for the inconvenience and request our customers to use the alternative 365-7600 number which has plenty of spare capacity.

Wednesday 2nd March 12:45 Our satellite feed was restored at 12:41 - somewhat later than promised.

Wednesday 2nd March 10:43 Our satellite provider confirms that they have a major technical problem which they are addressing. The internet feed probably be down for 30 minutes.
Please note that you may continue to send and receive mail and no mail will be lost. We apologize for the inconvenience. Customers are welcome to leave their phone numbers with our help desk if they wish to be notifed upon return of service.

Wednesday 2nd March 10:35 There is a problem with our satellite internet feed. We are contacting our upstream provider.

Monday 28th February 09:05 Power was restored at 08:58

Monday 28th February 08:52 There is a power cut affecting all of Gaborone West. We have been running on backup power since 08:20. Although we do not expect any interruption to our services it is possible that customers connecting to us via BTC dialup or leased lines may experience problems if BTC runs out of power at their exchanges or sub-exchanges.

Monday 14th February 08:15 Once again there is a problem with one of our E1 lines. Although we have plenty of lines available customers may get busy tones in some parts of town.

Thursday 10th February 08:35 We are contuning to experience problems with our E1 lines. We also see that another digital line, previously unaffected, has been reset twice today. We are seeking an urgent meeting with BTC to resolve these problems.

Wednesday 9th February 08:45 Customers are getting busy signals when connecting on our 3657600 from some parts of town even though we have many lines free. We are investigating with BTC.

Wednesday 9th February 08:20 We are liasing with BTC to try to solve the problem with our E1 lines. Unfortunately we note that they have just reset a different E1 line cutting off 25 users.

Tuesday 8th February 16:10 BTC are trying to solve the problems with our E1 lines. However it seems that one of them is now down completely. Another of our E1 lines has been cut numerous times today cutting off many users. We are continuing to chase BTC.

Tuesday 8th February 10:00 We still have problems with two of our E1 lines. At present users are unaffected but there may be problems with false busy tones later if BTC cannot resolve the problem.

Tuesday 8th February 07:55 There is a problem with one of our E1 dial-in lines. 23 dial-in lines are unavailable. We are trying to report the problem to BTC. Another of our E1 lines also was briefly reset cutting off 23 users.

Thursday 3rd February 14:35 We have identified a problems with one of our dial-in E1 lines. Customers are not affected as yet as we have a lot of spare capacity. We have notified BTC.

Friday 14th January 10:45 BTC's internet feed has been restored.

Friday 14th January 10:25 BTC lost their internet feed at 09:30 today. This does not immediately affect our customers or services. Botswana DNS queries are being answered by two out of four external DNS servers.

2005

Wednesday 29th December 18:25 BTC's links to Francistown were restored at 17:20 but Maun remains down

Wednesday 29th December 15:50 Our links to Francistown and Maun are down. BTC say they are having trouble with their lines to the North and will investigate.

Thursday 16th December 10:50 BTC is currently upgrading our links to our customers. There will be a brief (circa 6 minutes) interruption to one of our digital dial-in lines during this process. We expect that only a handful of users will suffer busy tones while this work is carried out.

Monday 13th December 11:05 While trying to attend to a noisy line on one of our ISDN lines BTC has accidentally disconnected one of our E1 lines. Customers may experience busy tones on our Global number 3656400. BTC is attending to the problem.

Monday 6th December 08:40 Our WAN link to MAun is down we have reported it to BTC.

Thursday 2nd December 17:40 BTC appears to have fixed their internet connectivity at 17:10.

Thursday 2nd December 15:30 BTC lost their internet connect at 14:30. This has no effect on our internet feed but mail to BTC hosted domains will be delayed. Botswana DNS seems to be working properly. BTC have no estimate as to when their feed will be restored.

Tuesday 29th November 12:25 BTC have just added 30 new lines to our hunt group on 3657600. Customers using BTC's MSU2 exchange had a brief period of congestion but all our lines are now working well. Customers are advised to use 3657600 if they get a busy tone on our other numbers. Hopefully there will not be busy tones on this number.

Tuesday 23rd November 15:10 BTC has fixed our GIA E1 but they seem to have done so at the expense of one of our Info E1 lines. We have reported this also to BTC.

Tuesday 23rd November 11:40 One of our E1 lines providing 30 diaslup circuits to our GIA customers is down. BTC has been informed.

Saturday 6th November 12:50 BTC has restored our Phikwe and F'Town links.

Saturday 6th November 10:05 Our links to Francistown and Phikwe are down. We have reported the matter to BTC.

Friday 5th November 13:45 One of our digital E1 lines has beeb down for some minutes - we presume this is due to BTC staff investigating the failure of our ISDN line.

Friday 5th November 13:30 One of our ISDN lines comprising 30 dialup circuits is down. BTC are investigating the problem.

Thursday 4th November 15:15 - BTC have experienced a fibre cut between Pilane and Mochudi. Our lines to Francistown, Phikwe and Maun are therefore down.

Monday 1st November 16:05 - One of our BTC E1 lines is down. This means we have 30 dialin lines down. We are investigating the problem.

Tuesday 26th October 16:42 - A power cut is affecting large parts of Gaborone West. We do not envisage any interruption to our services at this stage although there may problems with some BTC sub exchanges.

Monday 25th October 12:10 - All of our lines are working again.

Monday 25th October 12:05 - Our Info E1 has been restored but now one of our Global E1 lines serving 3656400 is down. BTC have confirmed they are working in the problem.

Monday 25th October 11:20 - One of our BTC E1 lines carrying 30 dialin lines is down. BTC is unable to investigate at present as they say their management system is down.

Thursday 21st October 12:15 - BTC are still struggling to effect a permanent repair to their Maun-Palapye link. The link was down, has just come up again but will probably go down again later as BTC continue their efforts.

Thursday 21st October 07:55 - BTC's link from Palapye to Maun is down again. It was operational for most of yesterday.

Wednesday 20th October 07:50 - Our WAN link to Maun is down. BTC are having problems with their line to Maun.

Wednesday 13th October 13:25 - BTC are having trouble with their links to Maun. Our WAN link to Maun will be down until BTC resolves the problem.

Friday 8th October 12:40 - An urgent piece of system maintenance will be carried out during lunchtime today. Most users will be unaffected but there may delays in logging on for a few minutes just after 13:00.

Friday 8th October 11:45 - Our WAN link to Phikwe is down due to a major power cut affecting large parts of Phikwe.