Customers across several mobile networks are experience complete data outages as Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson experiences as-yet unspecified “global software issue” that has affected a reported 11 countries.
O2, Tesco Mobile and Sky Mobile customers have had no access to mobile data on their devices since Thursday morning. More than 40 percent of the world’s mobile traffic goes through Ericsson networks.
Japan’s SoftBank is one affected. In a Japanese-language release the company suggested the issue was with a global software update that affected “packet switching machines” and they had resolved it by restoring the affected software to a previous version.
Outage Update: One of our 3rd party suppliers has identified a software issue in their system. Our technical teams are working extremely hard to resolve this. We'd encourage you to use Wi-Fi wherever you can and we are really sorry.
— O2 in the UK (@O2) December 6, 2018
An O2 spokesperson told Computer Business Review in a statement that: “All O2 technical teams are working closely with one of our third party suppliers who has identified a global software issue in their system which has impacted data services.”
O2 Down, Finger pointed at Ericsson
Ericsson informed us in an emailed statement that: “We are aware of the issue and are working together with our customers to solve it as soon as possible.”
Their spokesperson would not state exactly what had gone wrong, but it is believe to be related to a global software issue as it has affected networks they manage across the world. Japanese mobile network Softbank also experience data connectivity issue today. A spokesperson for Ericsson informed Computer Business Review that these issue have now been fixed for Softbank customers.
However, business in the UK are still experiencing data connectivity issues.
Transport for London is having difficulties keeping customers informed of live bus times as their Countdown System has gone down.
Countdown Systems – there are reports that live bus updates to our Countdown Systems has gone down. The company that updates the data to our network of Countdown Systems is currently experiencing difficulties in providing this service. This issue is being investigated.
— TfL Bus Alerts (@TfLBusAlerts) December 6, 2018
Tesco Mobile has also informed its users via Twitter that their: “Technical teams are working closely with one of our third party suppliers who has identified a global software issue in their system.”
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O2 customers have taken to social media to voice their displeasure over the outage with many commenting that it is not just their data that is out of action, but they are unable to make phone calls over the cellular network.
O2 commented that: “As a result of this incident, we are experiencing a high demand on our network which means some customers may have issues making and receiving voice calls.”
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