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O2 network outage latest – updates on text and 4g data problems
MILLIONS of furious O2 customers have endured a day without data services while some have also been unable to send texts - here's everything you need to know.
The network issues started about 5.30am yesterday with around 1,662 complaints made before 7am, and customers across Manchester, London and Southampton all reporting outages.
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Outraged customers of O2, which has a total of 32million users, took to social media to flag problems with 4G, data services and phone calls.
But the issues also spread beyond England to Scotland and Northern Ireland, a heat map by the Down Detector website showed at the time.
The network, which is also used by customers with Tesco Mobile, GiffGaff, Sky Mobile and Lycamobile, blamed the issue on faulty software provided by third party supplier Ericsson.
The Swedish company has issued a statement saying it believes the issue was caused because of "an expired certificate in the software" installed with O2.
Marielle Lindgren, UK and Ireland Ericsson chief executive, said: "The cause of the network issue is in certain nodes in the core network resulting in network disturbances for a limited number of customers across the world, including in the UK.
"The faulty software that has caused these issues is being decommissioned. Ericsson sincerely apologises to customers for the inconvenience caused."
Chief executive of Telefonica - O2's parent company - Mark Evans said: "I want to let our customers know how sorry I am for the impact our network data issue has had on them".
He added: "We fully appreciate it’s been a poor experience and we are really sorry."
The mobile company was forced to advise customers "to use wifi wherever they can" until services were fully restored.
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O2, Britain's second largest mobile company, said 3G was restored on mobile devices by 9.30pm on Thursday, while 4G was restored at 3am on Friday morning.
A statement from the network said: "We can now report that our 4G network has been restored.
"Our technical teams will continue to monitor service performance closely over the next few days to ensure we remain stable.
"A review will be carried out with Ericsson to understand fully what happened.
"We'd like to thank our customers for their patience during the loss of service on Thursday December 6 and we're sorry for any impact the issue may have caused."
Apart from customers with O2, Tesco Mobile, GiffGaff, Sky Mobile and Lycamobile, the outage has also affected systems relying on the same network such as the electronic timetables for London's buses and Boris Bikes due to their O2 sim connections.
Your rights when your network goes down - What to do to get compensation from O2, EE, Sky, BT and the rest
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The system fault brought particular stress and difficulty for Jennie O'Grady as she uses O2 data to monitor her type-1 diabetic daughter's blood sugar levels.
She told the Daily Mail: "We rely massively on her having internet access. She can be sleeping in her bedroom and it is sending me her blood sugar levels.
"I would get an alarm to say she is having a hypoglycaemic attack if her blood sugar levels dropped below four, which would mean she need treatment immediately and could go into a coma.
"Without it I have been completely clueless and I have not been able to check on her."
Another frustrated O2 customer wrote: "My data is not working neither are my calls. Not connecting and earlier I had no signal at all for about 45 minutes."
A"small proportion" of customers also reported problems sending text messages on Friday morning.
But O2 said on Friday afternoon that the issue had been resolved, and there don't seem to be so many complaints on social media.
One O2 customer wrote on Twitter this morning: "Still getting a failed message every time I try and send a text."
Another Twitter user called Mark, a customer of GiffGiff which piggyback's on O2's network, said: "Still having issues with the network, I'm on GiffGaff network which uses O2 and I'm having probs sending text messages.
"My phone just keeps failed to send every time I send an SMS. Calls have interference, data is ok."
GiffGaff, Tesco Mobile, Sky Mobile, Lycamobile all "piggyback" on O2's network, meaning the O2 outage has affected their customers too.
Piggybacking is really common among mobile networks in the UK.
In fact, there are only four UK mobile networks - EE, Three, O2 and Vodafone - and all the other providers piggyback - ie, buy space from - one of these networks.
Tesco, GiffGaff, Sky Mobile and Lycamobile are on O2, Asda is on EE and TalkMobile is on Vodafone.
Your rights when your network goes down
WHEN your network goes down, it's your mobile provider's responsibility to fix the problem.
If you feel the outage caused you significant problems or you waited a long time for the repairs to take place, it's worth complaining and asking for a refund on your bill or compensation.
To complain, you need to follow your provider's formal complaints procedure. Details should be available on its website or from its customer services.
If your problem is still unresolved after eight weeks you can submit your complaint to an independent Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) scheme.
Ofcom has approved two ADR schemes - and .
Your provider will tell you which scheme it is a member of.
When it comes to whether customers will be offered compensation, O2 says it will give customers TWO days free as compensation for 4G data problems - here's what you need to know.
Sky Mobile has already confirmed that customers will get free unlimited data tomorrow.
And - it will email all customers in the coming days.
Lycamobile, and Tesco Mobile are yet to confirm if they'll offer affected customers compensation.
It's not the first time O2's network has experienced issues.
Most read in money
In October, the mobile network was down leaving thousands of customers unable to make or receive calls.
It also happened in September, as both Sky and O2 mobile networks were down due to Storm Ali.
Meanwhile, EE and Vodafone are being investigated by the watchdog over claims that they gave false information about network coverage in rural areas.
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