back to article Brit mobe operator O2 asks cut-off customers: Have you tried turning it on and off again?

O2 customers have been reporting problems using their handsets on what's become a troublesome Thursday afternoon for the UK network operator. The first whinges began rolling in at 16:15 BST, and Twitter was soon awash with angry customers finding their social umbilical cords severed. I’m in St Helens right now and I can’t …

  1. Version 1.0 Silver badge

    Sounds like somebody rebooted an ID server and it's using a new address range? Time to reboot everyone to grab a new ID - that should fix it. The PFY probably tripped on the server power cord.

    1. tfewster

      I'm all right, Jack. Though I've been working from home today, so not moved between cells, and I'm not rebooting just in case!

    2. JetSetJim
      Mushroom

      25m subscribers all rebooting at the same time, hammering the HLR and potentially requiring the calculation of new sets of authentication keys is probably not the best solution. They're highly available platforms, but unlikely to cope with that sort of load.

      1. Nick Kew

        Not that many rebooting at once. Only those actually affected, presumably!

        I'm an O2 customer, and never noticed any hiatus. My only change yesterday was to put it in "airport" mode in the evening for an event where a call would've been unwelcome.

      2. Cuddles

        "They're highly available platforms, but unlikely to cope with that sort of load."

        And then people might not be able to connect to O2's network. Which would make a big difference.

  2. AlexGreyhead
    Coat

    Charmer

    Han (@SH_anonletters) strikes me as a lovely, charming lady with no noticeable sense of entitlement.

    (Yes, I'm grumpy - I'm not allowed to open my daily bottle of wine for another ten minutes...)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Charmer

      But it's an important call!!!!!

      Imagine how upset you would be if your daily bottle of wine was delayed more than 10 minutes?

      Or I didn't have my daily bottle of vodka on my weetabix to smooth out the rough patches...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Charmer

        She's in St Helens, at least she won't have a problem getting a glass. Small mercies.

    2. Jeffrey Nonken

      Re: Charmer

      I dunno... She seems to feel entitled to phone service that she's paying for.

      Kids these days, eh?

  3. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

    O2 really need to get ahead of the curve with new tech. They had a very good app called TU GO which worked as a VoIP phone, letting you send/receive texts and make/receive phone calls through wifi. Great, until they got rid of it and replaced it with WiFi calling, which is built into most modern handsets. At least I thought it was great until I moved house to somewhere where there is absolutely no mobile signal on any network.

    I thought "wifi calling will cover me". Well, sort of. Calls work fine, but SMS is not carried over the wifi bearer for some reason! My wife's EE phone can do it, but not O2. Trying to get an answer out of them elicits the telephonic equivalent of a blank stare. They have no clue when or if it'll work. But WHY? Why doesn't it work? Why can't they make it work like other networks do?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      For SMS to work on Wifi calling, they'd need to deploy an 'IP-SM-GW', which costs more money. So they'e hoping you won't notice as everyone's using iMessage or WhatsApp instead.

      1. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

        Interesting. Yes, it’s not so bad because there’s WhatsApp and iMessage but it’s still annoying. I just started a new contract as well.

        1. Andre Carneiro

          If you are in your first 14 days then you know what to do... ;)

  4. Starman

    And on that day my own rather large corprate customer decides to port my mobile from EE to O2 :P

    1. Alister

      Oh, so it's your fault!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Its not just me then

      I managed a phone transition to a new provider and they had a dodgy network for the first 3 days of the switch over. Add to the fact that I'd been saddled with a not fit for purpose handset (anyone remember the HTC ChaCha?) as we were banned from buying blackberry's but were obsessed with 'real' keyboards. I had several hundred very angry users. Being in a rural county they had far too free access for pitchforks for my liking.

  5. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge

    Merger from hell - TSB and O2 :p

    1. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

      And don't forget

      TalkTalk have just unloaded their mobile biz onto O2.

      A sort of self-thickening shitmix

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: And don't forget

        I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, they have unloaded billing onto O2 as they will have been on the O2 network to start with. MVNOs are not competing networks, they are a sham. If we have to have them we need nationalised infrastructure then all the mobile companies can be MVNOs a top that.

  6. The Nazz

    Ah, that explains it.

    Around that time, i thought this is rather odd, there are a number of pedestrians walking normally, head up, at regular speed and a logical sense of direction.

    Maybe this "no call" malarkey could be made mandatory between the hours of, oooh i dunno, 10am to 4pm?

    1. Anonymous Coward Silver badge

      Re: Ah, that explains it.

      Make it 10am to 9:59am and you're onto a winner

  7. kain preacher

    Blessing in disguise . It's beer o clock and your boss can contact you.

  8. getHandle
    Holmes

    On and off again??

    It's definitely not going to work if it's off...

  9. tiggity Silver badge

    Giff Gaff

    I had GG issues with data in the afternoon, 4G signal showed well but connection fails, presumably related as GG use O2 as their carrier.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Giff Gaff

      They do not just use O2 as their carrier, they are O2 for all but corporate/tax purposes. https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/04196996

  10. crediblywitless

    Total Inability To Support Ubiquitous Phonecalls?

  11. Gobhicks

    Hmmm

    My first thought when I found 02 was down yesterday was: "funny how this happens on a day when the news is full of cyber warfare". What are the chances that certain parties have latent hacks already in place on all sorts of systems ready to be activated whenever it suits them? How would/could we know?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    We run our shop through a GG mobile sim connection, and didnt notice anything unusual; maybe it was only affecting 02 and not reseller ID'ed phones??

    On the other hand, I didnt get around to finishing the new stock upload to the website, and this now gives me an excuse!!

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Buisness as usual

    In the area I live not receiving and making calls on o2 was a daily feature - even through they claimed I could get full 3g coverage indoors and out, mind you they also claimed issues could be caused by a faulty transmitter. If this was the case the local transmitter was under repair more times than an aircraft factory in Dresden!

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Makes a change from the 'remove the SIM and rub it on a jumper' advice. Another reason to say no to eSIM.

  15. Joe Montana

    Typical...

    Even when the provider knows there's a problem, they prefer to keep you performing troubleshooting activities in the hope that the problem will get resolved in the backend before you've finished. That way it looks like there never was a network problem, and the 10th restart of your handset or router reboot somehow fixed it.

    ISPs have been doing this for years.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Typical...

      You need a better ISP mate, try these guys: https://aa.net.uk

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