Just in case you haven't seen the news (because you can't get a data signal). Mind you, if that's the case, you're not going to see this either ;)
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46464730
Millions of smartphone users in the UK have lost their data services after the O2 network suffered technical problems.
O2 has 25 million customers, but also provides services for the Sky, Tesco, Giffgaff and Lycamobile networks which have another seven million users.
Ericsson, the Swedish firm that has close links with O2's Spanish owner Telefonica, told the BBC it was aware of an issue and it was investigating.
O2 added: "We believe other mobile operators around the world are also affected. Our technical teams are working with their teams to ensure this is fixed as quickly as possible.
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>>We believe other mobile operators around the world are also affected.
Somebody somewhere upgraded something without sufficient testing and will shortly be on the job market.
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>> Somebody somewhere upgraded something without sufficient testing and will shortly be on the job market.
>>
Sadly, given how ling the IT & Technology sector has been around that is likely to be the root cause.
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There seem to be other networks involved round the world. May be something more sinister than a software fault.
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Could be of course, but my guess is a firmware upgrade in some Ericsson comms equipment.
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"An O2 spokesperson said a software issue identified by a third-party supplier was to blame for the outage."
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Only one other network, as far as I can see, and that's Softbank. The other 'networks' having issues are MVNOs based on Softbank or O2 networks.
Softbank also uses Ericsson hardware.
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And data is back at 22:15 here in leafy surrey.
Expired security certificate(s) apparently, which at the end of the day is a pretty common failure these days. Ericsson are not the first to allow this to happen.
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I've got 4G back but can only send iMessages... texts to Androids aren't sending and I suspect neither are any getting through to me??
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Although O2 managed (just) to keep 2G voice services up, SMS texting over that medium was flakey.
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 7 Dec 18 at 10:37
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I don't use twitter but read loads of folks are posting on it about the text failure this morning. Just tried to contact Tesco and their webchat says they are too busy to start a new chat... and when you phone after the PAYG or Monthly option is chosen on either the phone cuts to a steady tone. Thankfully all my important contacts have iPhones so I can message them OK.
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I received a txt last night (9pm) that my sister had sent at 10am!
I tried replying, but just got a delivery failure message. Tried sending it again. No good. Then I got another txt from her asking me to stop, followed by a phone call telling me that she had received my reply 40 times.
Wonder if O2 will compensate their customers for yesterday? They did last time there was a screw up when people had issues for 2 days.
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Ah, compensation. The word of these times. Everybody needs compensation now for the smallest inconvenience. What have non business users lost? Not much really.
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>> What have non business users lost?
Doesn't matter. They are still paying for a service they didn't receive. Quite a few commuters were inconvenienced because of it. Not being able to pay for tickets. Not being able to look up bus/rail time tables. No idea if ApplePay, etc rely on a data signal to work. I think it even affected some chip n pin machines.
Say for arguments sake someone did their weekly shopping yesterday and spent 2 hours in the supermarket to find they couldn't pay for their shopping. To some that is not a small inconvenience if they have other commitments that day.
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Can't say I was really inconvenienced. Text was a bit hit and miss, no data but that's nothing much really. First world problems.
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"First world problems. "
OK, maybe for most in this case. But just ponder on this: one day Putin and his mates screw up all the mobile networks, our electricity transmission system, our external data cables and one or two other bits of IT.
He waits a few days, doesn't need to mobilise his army but just walks in and says at first Ukraine and now you.
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>> OK, maybe for most in this case. But just ponder on this: one day Putin
>> and his mates screw up all the mobile networks, our electricity transmission system, our external
>> data cables and one or two other bits of IT.
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>> He waits a few days, doesn't need to mobilise his army but just walks in
>> and says at first Ukraine and now you.
IT, and that includes the mobile phone network, are legitimate military targets, and should be protected and resilient. As should our ability to knock out theirs.
There as been little mention of the loss of police airwave, (an O2 cellular service) this was either unaffected or its being kept quiet.
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Not sure whether they're on 02 anymore. I know a guy who rigs Airwave masts - he mentioned a while ago that his primary work was with EE these days.
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Its the Emergency Services Network that EE are providing. I've been out of the loop since July but was involved in the testing and training when Airwave was first introduced.
Last I heard there were delays with implementing the ESN and the O2 contract was coming to an end. May have been commercially very beneficial for O2 to extend their contract (if thats true of course).
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I have a normally reliable source ! He was suggesting switching to EE as their coverage will be enhanced to cover the ESN - I read something yesterday that there was a change to be in ES provision to take advantage of new capabilities provided by 4 and 5G
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> OK, maybe for most in this case.
well that's what I was talking, this occasion.
> He waits a few days, doesn't need to mobilise his army but just walks in
>> and says at first Ukraine and now you.
>>
Nothing like a bit of hyperbole ;)
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>> Wonder if O2 will compensate their customers for yesterday? They did last time there was
>> a screw up when people had issues for 2 days.
Yup they will, just work out, document, and quantify your loss in financial terms and they will.
If you want to claim for your inability to use 1/31st of your 1gb data monthly data allowance, ie about 32 MB, forget it.
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>> Wonder if O2 will compensate their customers for yesterday?
They are, but not very much.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46481797
Friend of mine is on O2, and is getting 87p.
Tesco are giving me 2GB of data free. I'll add it to the other 2GB of data I don't use a month.
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>>
>> Tesco are giving me 2GB of data free. I'll add it to the other 2GB
>> of data I don't use a month.
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Me too. First I heard of the outage was the gift of data. My Windows phone will love that!
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>> Although O2 managed (just) to keep 2G voice services up, SMS texting over that medium was flakey.
Tell me about it. That SMS you sent me yesterday was delivered 7 times. I was beginning to despair.
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Texting is still flakey-three of our familie's messages have disappeared.
Last edited by: jc2 on Fri 7 Dec 18 at 19:14
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I didn't notice yesterday, but then I don't use the phone that much. A text I needed today from the bank worked ok though, once I'd stood in the one square foot in the house where the tiniest signal lasts for fifteen seconds.
Edit: Just sussed it's O2. I have Three. Don't know if they are related in some manner anyway.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Fri 7 Dec 18 at 19:39
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>> Texting is still flakey-three of our familie's messages have disappeared.
>>
They disappeared completely-didn't even appear in "sent" file and about an hour later were sent and appeared in the file.O2 must be servicing it's big customers first!
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giffgaff says -
We can see from the stories you’ve shared that it affected you all differently. To make sure we’re reflecting this I’m going to set aside a ‘goodwill fund’. If you feel yesterday had a significant impact on you, you can register for your share of the fund. There will be two options - you will be able to choose whether to take a share of the fund as credit, or donate your share to charity.
I won't be claiming. I was mildly inconvenienced. I left early for London by train, couldn't get on to the train's wifi, and noticed mobile data wasn't working. I tried restarting the phone several times, and when I got to an office with wifi I checked the service announcements and found the cause. I was in the same meeting all day with the phone on silent anyway.
Calls were OK so I was able to ring the boss to collect me from the station on the way home.
I see a number of O2/Tesco/giffgaff users are stamping their feet and threatening to change networks. That doesn't sound like a good strategy to me, I would think O2 and Ericsson are now the least likely providers to repeat yesterday's performance.
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>>
>> I see a number of O2/Tesco/giffgaff users are stamping their feet
Tesco have announced the 2gb data gift for January, thats fine by me
and threatening to change
>> networks. That doesn't sound like a good strategy to me, I would think O2 and
>> Ericsson are now the least likely providers to repeat yesterday's performance.
never stopprf RBOS making the same IT mistake twice.
This is O2's second major issue in recent times.
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I'm on Giffgaff (O2 piggyback) and had no problems at all. 4G was fine in the house after I turned off wi-fi on my phone, to check the service.
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Roger, so how come you were the only customer in 32 million that wasn't affected?
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Oh come on Dave, I often look at Roger and think "he is clearly one in a million".
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>> Roger, so how come you were the only customer in 32 million that wasn't affected?
Clearly it was project fear.
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Was Huwaei to blame?
www.thesun.co.uk/news/7921306/o2-4g-data-network-hacked-china-blackout/
O2 blamed service partner Ericsson's "faulty software" for the system failure — which knocked users' phones offline all day on Thursday.
But conspiracy theorists took to Twitter to suggest that Chinese hackers may have carried out a revenge attack.
One wrote: "O2 hacked by the Chinese in retaliation for removing Huwaei equipment from 5g networks".
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O2 - network problems - No FM2R
