Plusnet Achieves Continuous Availability of AAA Services with MySQL Cluster and FreeRADIUS

Plusnet has had some recent publicity in technology circles in a Case study published by MySQL / Sun.  The Case study covers the use of MySQL Cluster as the backend database to support the Authentication, Authorisation and Accounting services which are fundamental to ensuring secure and controlled access to the Network.

Plusnet upgraded their AAA (Authentication, Authorization, Accounting) platform to the FreeRADIUS server and MySQL Cluster database in order to address increased demands resulting from:

• rapid service proliferation over fixed and wireless networks
• a quickly growing user base
• The need for continuous network access and accounting demanded by more stringent SLAs

Since deployment a year ago the new MySQL Cluster and FreeRADIUS AAA platform has provided:

• Continuously available AAA services
• Accurate billing and revenue assurance by maintaining data integrity in real-time
• Accelerated time to market of new services with less cost and complexity due to built-in database redundancy and automated self-healing
• New levels of flexibility to scale RADIUS servers independently of their database
• Higher levels of infrastructure and management efficiency resulting from consolidation of multiple databases

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The Usergroup offer their congratulations to Plusnet in gaining this recognition.

The full story including Network diagrams is available from the Case Study pages on the Sun MySQL site:  http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/case-studies/mysql_cs_plusnet.php

uSwitch has recently published a survey of User satisfaction with support costs for calling a range of ISP's.  Plusnet does quite well in comparison with many of its peers

                                   Table 2

Plusnet entry corrected by PUG to reflect recent change.

A precis of some of the notes in the survey:

Data sourced from a YouGov survey on behalf of uSwitch.com in February 2009. Sample size was 12,054 adults. The survey was carried out online.

Data is unweighted. Specific reporting of results published for suppliers that received 200 or more responses.

1. AOL, Orange, Plusnet and Tiscali customers have to pay to call broadband technical support lines. Based on company customers this adds up to at least 5.45 million customers. According to YouGov survey 38% of broadband customers have called their technical helpline over the last 12 months, an average of 2.89 times each. Applied to 5.45 million customers, this is 16 million calls. Average length of call to technical helplines is 17 minutes according to YouGov survey. Average cost of 96p per call calculated as per table 2. Customers are therefore paying £5,760,000 calling technical helplines each year.
2. 38% of broadband customers have called their technical helpline over the last 12 months and average of 2.89 times each. Based on 15 million broadband customers (Ofcom August 2008) this is 16.5 million calls.

For more complete information visit the uSwitch web site www.uswitch.com/news/communications/uswitch-broadband-customers-foot-the-bill-for-assistance-19410179/

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