O2 and Ericsson Apologize After 4G Service Outage Affects Millions of Smartphones

[apolloa]

We are more reliant than ever on tech, but such is progress.

I’m hearing a lot of people saying “people should have contingency plans in place” or “you did alright without a mobile 20 years ago”. To those people I say what if I came and took that piece of technology called your car? Just took it for the day. Where’s your contingency plan for that? Or can’t you live without that?

Of course we did ‘alright’ without a mobile 20 years ago! Smart phones didn’t really exist then and neither did the internet like it does now!
No a days a lot of services are ONLY accessible via the internet, hence the annoyance when it breaks.
And that includes things like taxing your car..

A lot of people also only have a mobile phone and no landline, so what if they had emergencies to deal with? Because I had trouble making calls despite having a signal but no 4G.

So I totally agree with your statement, people don’t think of these reasons as to why it can be a pretty bad situation.

 

[coolfactor]

Expiring software certs seem like problems where better solutions need to be found (remembering when Apple had some issues with Apps on the Mac App store and peoples apps they had bought just stopped working one day).

The article mentions only ONE expired certificate, which suggests a flawed architectural design of the network. I see this lack of distributed resources all the time by big corporations that don't pre-plan for outages. Millions of users accessing resources behind a single domain name is a recipe for disaster. Yes, it requires setting up and managing a more complex network, but it avoids that single-point-of-failure that occurred here.

 

[japanime]

This took down Softbank in Japan, too. Another reason (among many) not to use Softbank.

 

[jimthing]

I moved from O2 to EE when I got a Series 4 on launch. Very happy. My wife and kids are on O2 still, and I didn't hear from them all day yesterday. Who do I send the thank you letter to?

Here's the address:

(FAO) 'Men escaping constant annoying trivial family calls' dept
Santa Claus
iCloud
Earth
Space
Universe

 

[chainmailr]

30 million total impacted by it and all because some dope forgot to renew a certificate so it expired.....that is just pi$$ poor management

It's happened to Google before, haha.

 

[Saturnine]

We are more reliant than ever on tech, but such is progress.

I’m hearing a lot of people saying “people should have contingency plans in place” or “you did alright without a mobile 20 years ago”. To those people I say what if I came and took that piece of technology called your car? Just took it for the day. Where’s your contingency plan for that? Or can’t you live without that?

- Hire companies
- Public transport
- Car alarms
- Friends and family

Those are my contingencies to protect against losing my car for a period of time.

 

[Spendlove]

I feel sorry for everyone on O2 that was hit - unfortunately I think it is the first time I can think of with "modern" mobile internet that this kind of issue has happened in the UK (and of course O2 in other countries).

I feel they will lose a lot of custom over it - if you can't use the service (and where I live, some of the pubs rely on the internet to take card payments - so they lost a LOT of money and you know they won't be happy with 17p token "We're sorry" payment).

But who would you go with?

Back in the day Orange were hands down the best, but then EE merger/takeover happened and almost overnight the Orange service and customer service went from world standard to world turd and have never recovered, more expensive and absolutely diabolical customer service and service.

Vodafone - I went for Vodafone when the new Apple Watch 4 launched - but soon learned why they have a bad reputation. Absolutely appalling customer service, even worse than EE! They promise the world but when you realise very quickly it was all built on lies or mistakes then the sheen very quickly tarnished so they are out (and they aren't cheap).

I am currently with 3, so far no problems, brilliant to use abroad (I can pretty much use my phone anywhere in the world which is perfect for travellers), they are dirt cheap and the service is good BUT the network is old and cannot cope with the next stage of mobile internet (no Apple Watch EVER if you are on 3).

All the others "middle tier" mobile companies piggyback on these services so who or what does that leave in the UK that is any good?

O2, badly run, not worth the risk if you have a business or rely on the internet in any shape or form.
EE, shockingly bad in every way. Avoid. Avoid.
Vodafone, charlatans only after your money and tying you into a mythical dream castle contract built on sand.
3, crap network and infrastructure, barely post Millennium.


[doublepost=1544388264][/doublepost]

- Hire companies
- Public transport
- Car alarms
- Friends and family

Those are my contingencies to protect against losing my car for a period of time.

All good ideas, but all are going to cost you a lot of your hard earned because O2 messed up.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Vodafone is much better.

Ahem:

Directly ...

Feb 26, 2014 10:00 (GMT+0:00)
Source: https://www.ericsson.com/en/press-r...oject-spring-awards-ericsson-with-5-year-deal

• Ericsson has been awarded with a five year deal as part of Vodafone's Project Spring organic investment programme
• The contract includes upgrading and expansion of Vodafone's 2G and 3G network and ambitious build-out of 4G LTE along with professional services such as network-roll out, integration, tuning & optimization as well as support services
• Ericsson's service professionals will transform Vodafone network into a market leading high-performance network for mobile broadband with full 4G LTE support

Hans Vestberg President and CEO, Ericsson, said: "We have been a trusted partner of Vodafone for 30 years and we are delighted to continue and expand our relationship with this latest award under Project Spring"

Ericsson services professionals will help Vodafone address all of the challenges associated with deploying 2G/3G/4G networks, assuming responsibility for everything from planning, end-to-end network rollout, tuning and optimization.

Ericsson technology to evolve London network
Jun 26, 2017 08:08 (GMT+0:00)
Source: https://www.ericsson.com/en/press-r...-ericsson-technology-to-evolve-london-network

• Ericsson has been selected to provide Massive MIMO and Carrier aggregation technology to help Vodafone UK evolve its 4G network in southern England
• In addition, Ericsson has been selected to provide Vodafone UK with 5G Radio technology to prepare for the introduction of 5G in the region.

Ericsson and Vodafone have also signed a memorandum of understanding that will cover the following areas of collaboration:

• 4G evolution, 5G radio non-standalone and standalone;
• 5G site deployment scenarios;
• NR simulations: 3.5 GHz and mmWave;
• 5G use-cases: business case study and proof of concept;
• distributed cloud and network slicing proof of concept: end-to-end latency and cloud- optimized network applications;
• collaboration with King’s College London; and
• 5G innovation: Technology Incubation Programme

Ericsson and Vodafone announce strategic partnership on 5G technologies
https://www.ericsson.com/en/press-r...unce-strategic-partnership-on-5g-technologies

Ericsson and Vodafone demonstrate Europe’s fastest Uplink speeds in commercial NETWORK
July 5, 2016
https://www.ericsson.com/en/news/20...astest-uplink-speeds-in-commercial-network---

Ericsson and Vodafone delivering superior indoor 4G coverage
2015 Source: https://www.ericsson.com/en/news/2015/9/ericsson-and-vodafone-delivering-superior-indoor-4g-coverage


Ericsson completes world's largest live network upgrade for Vodafone Essar in record 2009 time: 2009
Source: https://www.ericsson.com/en/press-r...ork-upgrade-for-vodafone-essar-in-record-time


PS: I live in Canada and was already aware of Vodafone's partnership with Ericsson the former global leader in mobile networks decades ago. How is it you life in Europe and could not find out this information; that the same base stations and towers are used by both networks.
[doublepost=1544418838][/doublepost]

- Hire companies
- Public transport
- Car alarms
- Friends and family

Those are my contingencies to protect against losing my car for a period of time.

Someone was ready for that question
[doublepost=1544418932][/doublepost]

I moved from O2 to EE when I got a Series 4 on launch. Very happy. My wife and kids are on O2 still, and I didn't hear from them all day yesterday. Who do I send the thank you letter to?

Man, sincerely, don't let your wife see that ... worse your kids ... resentment roils deep with them. remember when you're in late retirement years you're going to NEED them!

 

[Mark.]

It'll be interesting to find out of this tantalizing Mac rumor turns out to be true.

This genuinely made me laugh out loud.

 

[LukeHarrison]

O2, badly run, not worth the risk if you have a business or rely on the internet in any shape or form.
EE, shockingly bad in every way. Avoid. Avoid.
Vodafone, charlatans only after your money and tying you into a mythical dream castle contract built on sand.
3, crap network and infrastructure, barely post Millennium.

Not sure how true that is about 3. In the short time I've been with them even their 3G speeds are far and away faster than anything I used to get from O2s 4G. Usually topped out at 10Mb with O2 4G, 3 3G can hit 16/17Mb, and their 4G gets to 65-70Mb down in my area.

 

[gnasher729]

They apologize by you still get billed for the time it was out I bet...

You lose. They are refunding two days worth of payments.

 

[VulchR]

Russia strikes again. Oh wait, it was an expired security certificate.

 

[bobnugget]

Vodafone is much better.

You're joking aren't you?! Although I should say that everyone has different experiences and it depends where you live, etc. Had several family members on Vodafone over the years and it's always been terrible for data, particularly data reception more so than the speed...

Vodafone and O2 share their masts, etc throughout the UK, and have done for some years, so the "signal" you get will be the same on either https://blog.vodafone.co.uk/2012/11...-complete-guide-to-our-network-joint-venture/. The data network and network core is not shared - and this is where O2 seem to have outages every few years.

 

[Spendlove]

Not sure how true that is about 3. In the short time I've been with them even their 3G speeds are far and away faster than anything I used to get from O2s 4G. Usually topped out at 10Mb with O2 4G, 3 3G can hit 16/17Mb, and their 4G gets to 65-70Mb down in my area.

Agreed, they do the job asked of them three years ago.

But then e-sims happened and the 3 network cannot cope with those so that's them down the tech tube of yesterday.