BT has more exchange upgrades on the way
Sunday 11 May 2003 21:13:00 by Andrew Ferguson

BT Wholesale, has another set of software upgrades that need carrying out on their ADSL network. The upgrades will affect the eight Radius Access Servers (RAS) and will result in a short outage for users during the hours of 1am to 7am on the dates in the schedule below. Click each RAS name for a list of exchanges that use it.

The purpose of the upgrade is to install PPPoE auto-sensing code and updating the RAS software to further fix the fragmentation problems. PPPoE is due to appear as an option on the BT ADSL network in the near future. The purpose of supporting PPPoE and PPPoA is to allow the end-user a wider choice in ADSL modems. PPPoE when used with a single computer generally requires the use of a software client. But due to the widespread use of PPPoE in the US market, there is a wide range of ADSL modems that will work in bridge mode with PPPoE. The beauty of bridge mode is that it will present the full IP address to a wide range of routers.