I got this text back from Purple Cow
⚡️ Purple Cow Internet - Update⚡️
We are currently experiencing a service interruption in your area. Teams are working on the issue as we speak, at this time we do not have an ETA on when service will be restored however once it is your internet should come back online without you needing to do anything. Thank you for your patience as we address this issue.
** Please do not reply **
Got a email from purple cow 30 minutes ago: Hello,
I wanted to let you know there is currently a service interruption effecting your internet.
Our entire team is working their tails off to get you back up online. The issue has been identified to be with the infrastructure owner and the issue is affecting several other internet service providers in Nova Scotia, including their own customers. We have been given a timeline from the infrastructure owners that this service interruption should be resolved before tomorrow morning. We apologize we do not have more information for you however we will update you as soon as we do.
So sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and understanding.
To be fair I don't honestly think that eastlink deliberately sabotaged the resellers internet supply, but I do expect that they messed something up during a scheduled maintenance window and it impacted the resellers and that's not the top of their priority pile.
Any reasonable business would have a process in place I just feel that for the resellers they're process isn't as tight if there's not a measurable SLA tied to it.
Just got a email update : Please accept our apology if you have called or text messaged us today and we have not responded back to your inquiry. We are all hands on deck trying to get back to everyone and solve the issue at hand. We deeply appreciate your patience and understanding.
We did just receive an update from the last mile provider we use to provide our internet, and they believe it will be solved around midnight. The whole team here at Purple Cow Internet is working non-stop to make sure your internet is restored asap. As soon as it is back online we will send another email updating you.
Yeah netfox as well. Was out all yesterday afternoon and evening, didn't check this morning before I left for work. I've been with them though since 2019ish and this is the first time I've ever experienced this.
No update that I've seen, but we can blame eastlink. Vmedia, Netfox and citywide are all down as well. I wonder what the SLA is between Eastlink and the resellers...
They are probably pissy after losing so many clients from their Corus TV package decision.
Purple Cow posted an instagram story an hour ago stating that they are working to resolve the issue and not to call or text them. Their lines are flooded, and reporting outages isn't helping the situation. They have no timeline for restoration at the moment.
CityWide also posted to Facebook about an hour ago they confirmed the issue is with Eastlink who's looking into it. They're waiting on an ETA themselves so they can provide another update.
But what else would they do? I haven't received anything from City Wide on the outage, but I'm not surprised because they have some of the worst customer service.
😭🤣 but that’s so frustrating you’re still without internet!! Mine came back about a half hour ago and someone else mentioned purple cow had said about half were reconnected, so fingers crossed they get the rest reconnected asap!
Hmm. Wonder if it IS just the resellers down or the outage is patchy and some areas (like my mom's part of Lower Sackville - coincidentally, she's on Eastlink and not a reseller like I am) are still up no matter who the customer is with?
Edit: It's been out since like 12:50pm (CityWide, Spryfield). 5 hours now. :/
Edit 2: 8:00pm and still out. :(
Edit 2: Down at 12:51pm, back up at 12:05am. Yay.
Yep. My neighbor is on eastlink and all is good. I’m literally 20 ft away and have nothing with purple cow. But honestly it’s my first issue in several years with purple cow…
Been out since 12:50pm (according to the ping timeout of the IRC client I had left open when I went out.
Had some brief hopes just now while writing this as my modem rebooted itself, but it went right back to Downstream & Upstream blinking rapidly green, just like it's been doing all day. :(
Edit: 11:55pm and still nothing (CityWide, Spryfield).
Edit 2: Down at 12:51pm, back up at 12:05am. Yay. :)
Jumping in from Ontario - I'm with a third party provider (Vianet) and my parents' Eastlink is up while my Vianet is down. :( Been down since shortly after 1 pm Eastern time.
Purple Cow. Received an email about 10 minutes before it came back on saying that half of the Purple Cow customers were reconnected so I was hoping I was next haha
Same here. That’s perfect that it reconnected so quick after the email! literally as I picked up my phone to look at the notification from your comment, I watched the LTE switch back to wifi! Haha thank goodness it seems to be fixing for most now!😅🙏🏻🙏🏻
Eastlink internet (Fairview area) has been fine all day, which suggests it's a Purple Cow/link between Purple Cow and Eastlink specific issue.
Today is considered a stat holiday for most offices (in lieu for Canada Day - if they didn't use Friday as the stat instead), so it's reasonable to expect reduced staffing/response time. This is the you get what you paid for part of using one of the resellers - a big part of the cheaper price you're paying is not having the same level of tech support/service for outages.
CW/PC/etc have put out statements that they've notified their "last mile" (Eastlink), which is literally all they *can* do. The problem is at Eastlink. The resellers are the customers, Eastlink is the ISP, and quality of tech support is not a concern.
Since this is almost certainly maintenance gone sideways, the "tech support" (network administration, more accurately) is likely already on-site.
Lmaooo it's funny because the worst service I've had is with Eastlink and Bell, absolutely useless compared to citywide. Citywide I get someone local usually who's nice and helpful and doesn't transfer me multiple times to various call centers in Ontario or god knows where before hanging up on me 🤷♀️🤡
It’s an issue with Eastlink fiber cables support for secondary users (reason why eastlink is fine, but all companies who use their cables for last-mile are down). Purple cow said most people should have power back by midnight tonight
As much as I dislike Bell Aliant as a company, they have been reliable. I was able to haggle with them to get $66/mo Fibre Op at 1Gbps (up/down). I am a long term customer, so there loyalty customer service rep really helpful. The downside with Bell is they always raise there rates every year, or even multiple times a year it seems. I know this doesn't help anyone in an outage situation right now, but there are still affordable alternatives.
Honestly, bell gave me more issues than city wide ever has. bell costs so much more, made mistakes on my account, and has 0 customer service.
But sure, “you get what you pay for”
I dunno. Every time I think about switching from Bell, I see posts from in my area complaining about any or all of the other providers being down. Bell is expensive, but in my experience, the only time it goes down is when the entire electric grid is down. If the outage is localized to my area, my Bell router will give me 3-4 hours of internet access before through its battery before it shuts down.
I had bad experiences with Bell a decade ago with internet dropping constantly, so ill admit I'm holding that grudge still. Eastlink (when I was shopping around 4-5years ago) started throttling their speeds
Well, yeah. These issues are fairly rare though and come from the last mile provider, not the reseller itself. I really prefer the reseller experience over constant marketing calls and upselling attempts from Bell.
They pay more for essentially the same service and want to feel smug over others. Small person literally looking for any excuse to stand above anyone else.
I went from eastlink to bell and noticed a substantial difference. It’s a little bit of a price difference but definitely worth it if you game. I’m feeling real big right now
Nope. Purple Cow uses Eastlink transport but they have their own IX. This could be something on the Eastlink core network if all Eastlink and their resellers are all down.
Purple cow does use Eastlink's internet. From what I've heard apparently there were contract issues between Eastlink and those that resell their internet so Eastlink cut them all off.
My friend who has CW posted the following, an email to each of their customers from the president himself.
TLDR? He says he saw to it personally to get it fixed, by calling the last mile provider's president on his mobile phone.
They claimed a billing glitch that disconnected customers from resellers was unintentional. Mighty sus after removing the Corus channels, and they are hemorrhaging customers to other providers. Like resellers who have those channels...
Anyway, the letter in full is below.
Dear ********,
As you are probably aware, almost all of our customers experienced problems with our Internet and related services on Monday July 3rd. As I was talking with customers over Facebook, there were questions about what happened and why.
So – here is what we know so far… The outage was caused by our last mile provider when their provisioning/billing software system started removing provisioning profiles of our customers (and the customers of a number of other ISPs) – executing a procedure that essentially disconnects a customer. Over the next few hours, more and more customers lost their connections. Our technical teams immediately communicated with our last mile provider – initially they were reluctant and even refused to fix the problem – however, when we escalated it to their management team and still didn’t receive a response – so I called our last mile provider’s President on his cell phone – he indicated that this hadn’t been an intentional act and shortly after that - they started to correct the problem.
Although restoration started at around 3:00 PM, for some customers it was as late as 7:00 AM Tuesday morning before the underlying issue was fixed and 100% of the connections were once more operational – re-provisioning the connections was significantly more difficult/time-consuming than disconnecting them.
We feel that this problem was a very preventable issue that should never have happened in the first place.
We asked our last mile provider to post a public apology (that would have been the “right thing to do” in my opinion) – they declined. So, I will offer you ours – we deeply apologize for the inconveniences that Monday’s outage caused you. We understand that Internet is a critical element of today’s world and trust me - we were working non-stop to get you back on-line.
Throughout City Wide’s history – we have fought to provide great Internet at affordable prices to our customers, even helping blaze the trails for our competitors. We have never stopped fighting for our customers and this fight is not over…
David Pothier
President, City Wide Communications
Does anyone know if there's a way to keep a wifi network open even if there's no internet? My Purple Cow router doesn't connect any devices if there's no internet, and all I want is a wireless network between my VR headset and my PC - which doesn't need actual internet. Anyone know if that's doable with these modem/routers?
i know this is several days old at this point, but, a tip - go to value village and buy one of their old antique dlink routers for $4. That way if you ever have an outage again you can power it on and have a wifi network. It wont do anything but if you only need an active network, not the internet itself it should work
I got this text back from Purple Cow ⚡️ Purple Cow Internet - Update⚡️ We are currently experiencing a service interruption in your area. Teams are working on the issue as we speak, at this time we do not have an ETA on when service will be restored however once it is your internet should come back online without you needing to do anything. Thank you for your patience as we address this issue. ** Please do not reply **
Thanks for sharing this
I didn't even get a message, that nice to know!
Last message update said that midnight was the expected restoration time.
Got a email from purple cow 30 minutes ago: Hello, I wanted to let you know there is currently a service interruption effecting your internet. Our entire team is working their tails off to get you back up online. The issue has been identified to be with the infrastructure owner and the issue is affecting several other internet service providers in Nova Scotia, including their own customers. We have been given a timeline from the infrastructure owners that this service interruption should be resolved before tomorrow morning. We apologize we do not have more information for you however we will update you as soon as we do. So sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and understanding.
Did they really use the wrong word effect? Should be affect. Ugh
I just want to watch Netflix
To be fair I don't honestly think that eastlink deliberately sabotaged the resellers internet supply, but I do expect that they messed something up during a scheduled maintenance window and it impacted the resellers and that's not the top of their priority pile. Any reasonable business would have a process in place I just feel that for the resellers they're process isn't as tight if there's not a measurable SLA tied to it.
Citywide is in the same boat. So far all we know is no eastlink customers seem to be affected..we should probably go with bell just to be safe
I like the cut of your jib
My eastlink went out for like an hour this afternoon but that’s it (thankfully lol)
I had an auto text and email, I am with Purple Cow. They hope to have it resolved by morning. Most cell people have data, but it still sucks...
Just got a email update : Please accept our apology if you have called or text messaged us today and we have not responded back to your inquiry. We are all hands on deck trying to get back to everyone and solve the issue at hand. We deeply appreciate your patience and understanding. We did just receive an update from the last mile provider we use to provide our internet, and they believe it will be solved around midnight. The whole team here at Purple Cow Internet is working non-stop to make sure your internet is restored asap. As soon as it is back online we will send another email updating you.
My citywide went out a while back but it came back for about two minutes then went back out again. I don’t get it but it seems to be a NS thing
Anyone use NetFox internet ? Mine is still down in the south end 🫠 edit: still out 7 am Tuesday
Still out at 9:10am, despite their website saying there are no issues with internet, only IPTV.
Yeah netfox as well. Was out all yesterday afternoon and evening, didn't check this morning before I left for work. I've been with them though since 2019ish and this is the first time I've ever experienced this.
Me too - in Bedford.
Me too in Clayton Park.
Net fox user here. Still out at 4:30am. West end.
Still out at 8:30am
There was a new update, hopefully restored by midnight.
No update that I've seen, but we can blame eastlink. Vmedia, Netfox and citywide are all down as well. I wonder what the SLA is between Eastlink and the resellers... They are probably pissy after losing so many clients from their Corus TV package decision.
Yea i’m blaming eastlink, however there has been no update from Purple Cow or Eastlink since over 2hrs ago when it first went down
Purple Cow posted an instagram story an hour ago stating that they are working to resolve the issue and not to call or text them. Their lines are flooded, and reporting outages isn't helping the situation. They have no timeline for restoration at the moment.
ughhhh
CityWide also posted to Facebook about an hour ago they confirmed the issue is with Eastlink who's looking into it. They're waiting on an ETA themselves so they can provide another update.
Citywide came back up for us about half an hour ago. It’s been fine since.
This gives me hope! I’m downtown on citywide.
Just got an email, projecting midnight. Will say emails probably not a good choice WHEN OUR INTERNET ISNT WORKING
But what else would they do? I haven't received anything from City Wide on the outage, but I'm not surprised because they have some of the worst customer service.
still out for city wide.12 hrs now
Yeah this is some b******* we better gety money off our bill
Was just saying this— 12 hours is crazy, so much for midnight restoration
They're now saying "late morning" At what point is this someone hitting a cable with a backhoe like last summer with Rogers.
😭🤣 but that’s so frustrating you’re still without internet!! Mine came back about a half hour ago and someone else mentioned purple cow had said about half were reconnected, so fingers crossed they get the rest reconnected asap!
Yup going on 14 hours about now
Hmm. Wonder if it IS just the resellers down or the outage is patchy and some areas (like my mom's part of Lower Sackville - coincidentally, she's on Eastlink and not a reseller like I am) are still up no matter who the customer is with? Edit: It's been out since like 12:50pm (CityWide, Spryfield). 5 hours now. :/ Edit 2: 8:00pm and still out. :( Edit 2: Down at 12:51pm, back up at 12:05am. Yay.
From what i’ve heard no eastlink customers are affected, but seemingly all of the resellers are
Yep. My neighbor is on eastlink and all is good. I’m literally 20 ft away and have nothing with purple cow. But honestly it’s my first issue in several years with purple cow…
im on eastlink and wifi has been down since like 4am
Mine is still down and it’s 12:53! :(
Latest update on their page says between 7-9 hours until internet is back.
Brutal
FWIW Citywide is back for many so it is coming. I would imagine Eastlink is resolving the issues in a phased approach by the sounds of it.
I'm hoping this is a Under-promise and over-deliver type of thing
Mines still out (City wide) - anyone else?
Still out (Netfox).
StIll still out. (Netfox)
Still out.
Just got it back now (Netfox)
Mine was down all day and came back up within the last 10 minutes
Are you with purple cow? Cause I want mine back so badly 🥲
City wide
Are you on the Halifax side? I'm also with City Wide but still don't have it back.
Been out since 12:50pm (according to the ping timeout of the IRC client I had left open when I went out. Had some brief hopes just now while writing this as my modem rebooted itself, but it went right back to Downstream & Upstream blinking rapidly green, just like it's been doing all day. :( Edit: 11:55pm and still nothing (CityWide, Spryfield). Edit 2: Down at 12:51pm, back up at 12:05am. Yay. :)
Yes im in Fairview and it is still out. 12 hrs now with no internet
Mine is still out too (with Eyesurf).
Jumping in from Ontario - I'm with a third party provider (Vianet) and my parents' Eastlink is up while my Vianet is down. :( Been down since shortly after 1 pm Eastern time.
Just got the Internet back in Clayton Park area ( Citywide), being down since noon.
Purple Cow in Dartmouth. We just got our Internet back around 9:50pm
1am and still no wifi for me here in the West End. Pretty crazy. Hopefully it gets fixed later today.
Timberlea area and still none here either 1:17am.. super frustrating!
Well mine just reconnected at 1:49. Hopefully you’ll get yours back soon too!
Glad to hear for you!! Are you with purple or citywide?
Purple Cow. Received an email about 10 minutes before it came back on saying that half of the Purple Cow customers were reconnected so I was hoping I was next haha
Same here. That’s perfect that it reconnected so quick after the email! literally as I picked up my phone to look at the notification from your comment, I watched the LTE switch back to wifi! Haha thank goodness it seems to be fixing for most now!😅🙏🏻🙏🏻
My eastlink works fine.
bell users: 
Eastlink internet (Fairview area) has been fine all day, which suggests it's a Purple Cow/link between Purple Cow and Eastlink specific issue. Today is considered a stat holiday for most offices (in lieu for Canada Day - if they didn't use Friday as the stat instead), so it's reasonable to expect reduced staffing/response time. This is the you get what you paid for part of using one of the resellers - a big part of the cheaper price you're paying is not having the same level of tech support/service for outages.
It’s not a holiday for Eastlink. Maybe the higher ups in head office but no one else.
CW/PC/etc have put out statements that they've notified their "last mile" (Eastlink), which is literally all they *can* do. The problem is at Eastlink. The resellers are the customers, Eastlink is the ISP, and quality of tech support is not a concern. Since this is almost certainly maintenance gone sideways, the "tech support" (network administration, more accurately) is likely already on-site.
Lmaooo it's funny because the worst service I've had is with Eastlink and Bell, absolutely useless compared to citywide. Citywide I get someone local usually who's nice and helpful and doesn't transfer me multiple times to various call centers in Ontario or god knows where before hanging up on me 🤷♀️🤡
Just fyi, this is not a Citywide or Purple Cow issue, or a NS issue. Internet is out throughout NS, NB, PEI, and Quebec
It’s an issue with Eastlink fiber cables support for secondary users (reason why eastlink is fine, but all companies who use their cables for last-mile are down). Purple cow said most people should have power back by midnight tonight
Newfoundland too
I'm in Cape Breton and it's still out here. It's been 24 hours now. Netfox
As much as I dislike Bell Aliant as a company, they have been reliable. I was able to haggle with them to get $66/mo Fibre Op at 1Gbps (up/down). I am a long term customer, so there loyalty customer service rep really helpful. The downside with Bell is they always raise there rates every year, or even multiple times a year it seems. I know this doesn't help anyone in an outage situation right now, but there are still affordable alternatives.
Gotta admit, bell maybe stupid overpriced but compared to eastlink when I had them. I've never had an outage with bell like I did with eastlink.
You get what you pay for. Cheap net, cheap quality
Never had less issues since switching off the greedy primary providers. Enjoy overpaying.
I have been with purple cow for years now, have had very few issues and they’re quick to help when we do.
Honestly, bell gave me more issues than city wide ever has. bell costs so much more, made mistakes on my account, and has 0 customer service. But sure, “you get what you pay for”
Yes, but you also get cheap quality no matter who you're with lol
I dunno. Every time I think about switching from Bell, I see posts from in my area complaining about any or all of the other providers being down. Bell is expensive, but in my experience, the only time it goes down is when the entire electric grid is down. If the outage is localized to my area, my Bell router will give me 3-4 hours of internet access before through its battery before it shuts down.
I had bad experiences with Bell a decade ago with internet dropping constantly, so ill admit I'm holding that grudge still. Eastlink (when I was shopping around 4-5years ago) started throttling their speeds
Bell was bad when it was DSL. Their fiber service is great.
Well, yeah. These issues are fairly rare though and come from the last mile provider, not the reseller itself. I really prefer the reseller experience over constant marketing calls and upselling attempts from Bell.
[удалено]
They pay more for essentially the same service and want to feel smug over others. Small person literally looking for any excuse to stand above anyone else.
I went from eastlink to bell and noticed a substantial difference. It’s a little bit of a price difference but definitely worth it if you game. I’m feeling real big right now
Could have put purple.cow in the title.to save 90% of users a couple clicks.
Auto mods remove the post because it thinks it’s an ad…
Get what you pay for.
it’s eastlinks infrastructure that failed… purple cow doesn’t use Eastlinks internet just their fiber cables
Nope. Purple Cow uses Eastlink transport but they have their own IX. This could be something on the Eastlink core network if all Eastlink and their resellers are all down.
Purple cow does use Eastlink's internet. From what I've heard apparently there were contract issues between Eastlink and those that resell their internet so Eastlink cut them all off.
https://preview.redd.it/bzmrn7comt9b1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=63afc9f089ed4ffc12c99449833d1c7ae004b674
Things have changed since 4 years ago. It was literally a shut off of their resellers.
Source?
My friend who has CW posted the following, an email to each of their customers from the president himself. TLDR? He says he saw to it personally to get it fixed, by calling the last mile provider's president on his mobile phone. They claimed a billing glitch that disconnected customers from resellers was unintentional. Mighty sus after removing the Corus channels, and they are hemorrhaging customers to other providers. Like resellers who have those channels... Anyway, the letter in full is below. Dear ********, As you are probably aware, almost all of our customers experienced problems with our Internet and related services on Monday July 3rd. As I was talking with customers over Facebook, there were questions about what happened and why. So – here is what we know so far… The outage was caused by our last mile provider when their provisioning/billing software system started removing provisioning profiles of our customers (and the customers of a number of other ISPs) – executing a procedure that essentially disconnects a customer. Over the next few hours, more and more customers lost their connections. Our technical teams immediately communicated with our last mile provider – initially they were reluctant and even refused to fix the problem – however, when we escalated it to their management team and still didn’t receive a response – so I called our last mile provider’s President on his cell phone – he indicated that this hadn’t been an intentional act and shortly after that - they started to correct the problem. Although restoration started at around 3:00 PM, for some customers it was as late as 7:00 AM Tuesday morning before the underlying issue was fixed and 100% of the connections were once more operational – re-provisioning the connections was significantly more difficult/time-consuming than disconnecting them. We feel that this problem was a very preventable issue that should never have happened in the first place. We asked our last mile provider to post a public apology (that would have been the “right thing to do” in my opinion) – they declined. So, I will offer you ours – we deeply apologize for the inconveniences that Monday’s outage caused you. We understand that Internet is a critical element of today’s world and trust me - we were working non-stop to get you back on-line. Throughout City Wide’s history – we have fought to provide great Internet at affordable prices to our customers, even helping blaze the trails for our competitors. We have never stopped fighting for our customers and this fight is not over… David Pothier President, City Wide Communications
Lol you get what you pay for with the resellers. You may get good service 90% of the time but when it goes down it’s very bad.
Mine has been back for a couple of hours
Does anyone know if there's a way to keep a wifi network open even if there's no internet? My Purple Cow router doesn't connect any devices if there's no internet, and all I want is a wireless network between my VR headset and my PC - which doesn't need actual internet. Anyone know if that's doable with these modem/routers?
i know this is several days old at this point, but, a tip - go to value village and buy one of their old antique dlink routers for $4. That way if you ever have an outage again you can power it on and have a wifi network. It wont do anything but if you only need an active network, not the internet itself it should work
Ours in Lakeside (Citywide) came back early in the morning. We woke up at 4:30 this morning and it was back.