Carib Down?

[walleyek]

Anyone else having trouble getting in to Caribsports?

[Sheaball]

I haven't been able to get in for over an hour. Probably been down longer than that.

[butch]

As of 9:44am ET we lost our internet connection.

The problem is with the physical connection between our office and the communications company. We are currently working with the local phone company and internet provider to correct this situation. We do expect to be online by or before 4pm ET.

We regret any inconvenience caused by this downtime which is very much out of our control. We thank you for your understanding and will continue to post replies to this thread throughout the day.

Happy Holidays
CaribSports

[butch]

What a day! A taste of adversity, Caribbean style; ...or was it a four course meal? After all we've been through today with our communications providers, we feel blessed with the final outcome.

After the failure of two plans for a physical connection back on the net, we finally decided to remove the local phone company from the equation today, relocating our main server directly on the backbone of our ISP (thank you Cable and Wireless for stepping up to the plate). Online wagering service was restored around 5:45pm ET with limited modem-style access for our staff to repost the odds onto the server. Around 8pm ET, a brand new connection was installed to restore access from our office to the server. Besides some frailed nerves, we are now back to normal.

We'd like to share this log of todays events as we ourselves found it so exciting.

8am: the books are done, archives out of the way, ready to start another day.

9:45am: "Whats taking so long for this page? oh no! WERE DOWN!". On the horn with our ISP.

10:00am: Spoken to the ISP and the local phone company, "definitely a problem with the physical wire. Probably underground, one of 30 splices to check." Fantastic! we immediately requested a new physical hook-up, "no worries", the crew said, they would be there after lunch.

12:00pm, 1pm local time: No crew, no update,
plenty of voice mail at the phone company, lots of worries. We start the paperwork to physically relocate our internet server at the ISP, with a skeleton crew on modems to take care of the backend.

2:00pm, an update from the phone company, "Out of hundreds of available phone lines just outside the office, none would be adequate for a T1 trunk." Great! we finally
get one more promise for an ISDN line to connect our office to the ISP.

4:30pm, we get approval to move our hardware onsite at the ISP. Shutdown the server, box it, into the car, dont forget the cables, on the road.

5:00pm, C&W staff is ready and waiting for us in the server room. Quickly we're connected, secure server started, backup devices online, everything seems fine, open it up and let-em bet.

At this instant, Carib Sports was one man on a modem, opening lines, answering messages, watching action, getting swamped. Others had split up in search of any online access they could find. As we drive away from the service provider, we're thinking "Great, the customers are back online, now hopefully the ISDN will be installed and we can actually monitor the site effectively." We phone in, no ISDN, no phone crew, no updates from the phone company; its 6:30pm local time, Dec 23rd, half-day tomorrow, holiday friday, then the weekend, maybe things will be back to normal by monday. This should be fun!

Then the cell phone rings... "Hello?"
"Happy Holidays!, how are things?" Now what could have been more appropriate than a rescue call from S.O.S.? "What? you just need some phones, computers, desks, and a little bandwidth? No problem, send them over." and that was that. New plan, over to Sports Off Shore. For the following 3 hours, part of our staff was at S.O.S. where we recovered from todays setbacks and were able to serve our customers with the quality they deserve. Its certainly not the first time S.O.S. has shown that type of class; helping a fellow bookmaker out of a sticky situation. We respectfully thank S.O.S. and look forward to returning the favor some day.

A complete recovery occurred when the ISDN line was finally installed at the office this evening, and we were able to reconfigure the computers for this new connection.

We would like to thank those of you who have been so understanding regarding today's downtime. Also, we'd like say that we really appreciate the seasons greetings messages we have received, we return the best of wishes to all of you.

Happy Holidays
Carib Sports

[Dwayne]

Thanks for the play by play update. I mean it, I'm not being sarcastic. I always appreciate being informed, it's good customer service. Thanks.

[mls]

I would also like to thank Carib for the excellent and timely posts.

Such physical problems are inevitable for all internet books. And timely updates on such widely read sites as Bettorsworld can avoid any customer anxiety.

Again, thank you Carib for your professinal updates and congratulations on quickly solving a difficult problem.

P.S. Now you know why Carib is one of my favorite outs (along with WSEX and Olympic).