New Zealanders silenced by mobile phone breakdown

Around half a million New Zealanders have been unable to use their mobile phones after a technical fault in an operator's network.

According to reports all of Telecom's prepaid customers and 60% of their other users have been experiencing difficulties in using their handsets.

A Telecom spokeswoman told the Waikato Times that a software glitch had caused the outage problems.

Last updated: 10:48 Friday 8th December 2000.

http://ananova.com/news/story/sm_138597.html?nav_src=newsIndexHeadline

-- Doris (nocents@bellsouth.net), December 08, 2000

Answers

...

Telecom said one of its suppliers, Ericsson, had been loading software into the network, which was then hit by a bug.

Ms Witten said: "I'm pleased to say we've isolated that and we've identified what the issue is and the service is stable."

She apologised to customers and said such problems were rare. But she would not be drawn on the possibility of compensation for customers unable to use their phones.

The mobile fault continues a bad week for Telecom.

The e-mail system of its internet service provider Xtra crashed from 7 pm on Tuesday to 5 pm on Wednesday, leaving messages bound for 150,000 customers stranded in cyberspace.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=163725

-- Barb Knox (barbara-knox@iname.com), December 08, 2000.