Hetzner customers affected by last week`s power outage will not have to pay their fixed monthly fees for November.
In a letter to customers, Hetzner MD Hans Wencke explains the company`s immediate power restoration was hindered by a faulty implementation of a generator.
"In August 2007, we replaced the Johannesburg generator to cater for greater capacity. However, the new exhaust system has a 5mm smaller diameter and was connected to the original exhaust with a special exhaust cloth.
"This is standard practice for this type of fitting; however, in our case the smaller diameter caused a vacuum, which pulled the apparently insufficiently hardened wrap into the old exhaust," states the letter.
Together with generator supplier, Khubenker Engineers, the company has concluded that the outage occurred due to an "engineering underestimation" rather than a case of poor workmanship.
Taking a knock
Responding to ITWeb`s queries this morning, Wencke said the company expects to lose over a quarter of its November revenue as a result of the waiver.
"Hetzner is committed to transparency and customer service. Unlike service degradation caused by upstream providers, over which Hetzner typically has limited or no control, this incident was directly associated with a portion of the Hetzner-owned network.
"We have to share in the pain of our customers` experience. By taking the knock now, we also ensure we are more vigilant in the future," he explains.
Hetzner`s November bills will only reflect variable amounts, such as traffic generated above the allocated quota or domain registration renewal fees, says Wencke.
This waiver exceeds its network guarantee in its standard term and conditions. According to these, Hetzner commits to crediting the customer 5% of the base monthly fee for every 30 minutes of downtime. Hetzner`s services were down for only a couple of hours.
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