Re: Paging might be broken again today?

On 24/07/2017 4:31 p.m., Michael Fincham wrote:
> On 24/07/2017 4:14 PM, "David Maclagan" <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Talking to a firie contact, they're under the impression that the
>> platform's been EoLed for everyone other than the firies. So that could be
>> the issue?
> Yes, I'm aware of this. It is not relevant to the issue today, the system that has fallen over is supposed to be still working for us.
>
> Looks like Spark is looking in to things now, though :)
>

As I understand it the network 'as a going concern' has transferred 
ownership to Fire and Emergency (formerly NZFS, now known as Fire and 
Emergency as of 1 July) from Spark (also as of 1 July), but Spark are 
running it.

Ref 
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK1611/S00807/spark-nz-fire-service-to-create-a-private-paging-service.htm 
and also a Google Cache of a page on Sparks' site listing alternatives 
to paging during the transitional period: http://ow.ly/CWDf30dQZ2H from 
which the following is a quote:

"New Zealand Fire Service has entered into a contract with Spark to 
establish a new private paging service from 1 July 2017. New Zealand 
Fire Service will make this private service available to critical 
emergency services, health boards and other customers for whom paging is 
business critical."

Those people who were customers of the network under Spark were 
contacted (or at least, my employer were) and if interest in continuing 
to use paging was expressed, a quote supplied based on Spark on-selling 
the service on behalf of Fire.  In our case that quote was going to 
substantially increase our costs, so we used the time to transition away 
from paging to another solution.

I'm inferring based on what i'm hearing (so, third hand information) 
that there may be components of the wider service (so not so much the 
core paging service, or perhaps the bits that Fire themselves use, but 
other bits around the outside) that weren't included in the service 
transition and that there may well be things now that're in limbo in 
terms of ownership and maintenance (nevermind ongoing support).

I see two scenarios as a result
- People who for whatever reason weren't aware of the changes and/or 
their ramifications, and now are broken
- People who continued the service arrangement but are dependent on 
aspects of the servie that were overlooked in the transition, or perhaps 
fit into the 'best efforts' category and are now in limbo in terms of 
whether they'll be looked after.

I always had concerns about the way in which some of the 'best efforts' 
components were supported even when Spark owned everything end-to-end so 
I wish I could say i'm surprised.

Mark.

PS: All strictly personal opinions etc etc.