We discovered, around 11:30 today, that our phone trunk provider is experiencing problems. These problems make it nearly impossible for the outside world to call into any of our telephone numbers. It had also affected our outgoing calling ability, but I have figured out a way to work around that. Subscribers who have our phone system can call out now, but incoming calls, by and large, seem to be unable to be completed at this time.
The nature of the problem seems to be that the authoritative nameserver used by this trunk provider is inaccessible, but the nature of the problem also means we cannot easily reach out to the company to communicate these problems or to get feedback on when the problem will be fixed.
I will update this space once I have more information or the problem has been resolved.
As of 1 pm, incoming calls (at least from the Verizon network) are working, although calls from T-Mobile are not.
3:00 pm – The trunk provider has posted an update, and seems to have been able to work around the issue. It seems to have been caused by a deliberate denial of service attack against them. They report that they “have made changes in the configuration with [their] upstream carriers to mitigate the issue for incoming calls as well.”, so incoming calls should be working normally at this time for all carriers.
Friday morning, 9/17 , the problems started up again. Now, it’s even worse than it was yesterday. The trunk provider’s entire infrastructure appears to be deliberately targeted, and they are working to solve the problems and restore phone service, but they do not have an estimated time of repairs as yet.
Saturday, September 18: This problem has still not been resolved – ii you can get through on the phones, please do so, but if the phones are not working, please email our billing team at billing@ecpi.com or our support team at support@ecpi.com with any concerns.
Wednesday. September 22: Our trunk provider, VoIP.ms, is still suffering from the ongoing DDoS attacks, and we have decided to switch trunk providers to a company which does have a stable connection. We expect this transition to complete on Friday, and all phone services should be working normally by then.
Thursday, September 23: The transition to the new trunk provider has occurred ahead of schedule, and our phone system should now be working normally. Please let me know (at support@ecpi.com) if you are a VoIP customer and you are still having any issues, or if you need any changes to your Caller ID.