Vodafone is racing to fix a network outage that was caused by a break-in on Sunday night.
Some Vodafone customers — the company has not yet specified how many — have been experiencing problems accessing voice, text and mobile internet services. In a statement on Monday morning, a spokesperson for Vodafone said the firm "had a break-in last night at one of our technical facilities which resulted in damage done to some of our equipment".
"This means that some customers may be experiencing temporary loss of voice, SMS and internet services," the spokesperson said. "We are working quickly to restore these and will be back to normal as soon as we can."
Vodafone's spokesperson added that the break-in had resulted in "no impact on the privacy of customers' data".
Photo credit: varets
UPDATE (3.50pm): We have a follow-up story on this now. It seems voice should be back up, with SMS and data to follow this afternoon.
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Not sure where the break-in was but can confirm that there has been no service today around Axminster in Devon
Nothing on the Vodafone web site about this - thought it was just my phone - thanks for the info!
Why don't Vodafone have something splashed on their website to confirm this? Very frustrating and potentially expensive for those of us relying on it to run a small business.
no service in southern Hampshire
No service in Sunbury on thames (Near heathrow)
suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.
(Agree with John Cogan though, why have they not adderessed this ? They're even mentioning it on the TV competition thingys)
it is the whole of the south east
this is from vodafone:
Vodafone Technology Incident Management
Service Operations
.
Incident Update
Source Remedy Reference
Incident
Service Affected 3G, 2G, SMS, Voice, Vodafone One Net - Voice, Paknet, Telephony, Vodafone.co.uk, BlackBerry Connect, Email, Network Mgt, Voicemail, Fixed Link (Voice), Remote Access Service, MMS, Severity P1
Status Open Comms ID:
Start 28/02/11 00:40:00
Incident Statement Link connectivity issues are being experienced to thte Basingstoke Data Centre
Impact Multiple services are impacted. Customers may experience problems making & receiving calls, sending and receiving text messages & establishing data sessions. War room invoked, conf call ongoing to discuss action plan. Crisis Mgmt engaged.
Last Update
Next Update 28/02/11 08:00:00
P.s. I DO know how to spell addressed...slip of the finger.
=)
no service in earley in Reading, really glad it is not my phone!! :(
good to know the war room has been invoked
No service in London hammersmith.
Anyone else thinking about leaving Vodafone?
its has no service in berkshire ats all
and that was hard work found out what happen
vodafone should inform customers with email or etc
really poor service from vodafone , just wandering if they will appologise or something !!!!
No service in Wiltshire or Somerset.
No service at all in Hampshire/Sussex/Kent, just spoken to Vodafone who said it's their highest priority and they hope all services will be back on at 3pm
No service in Slough either!!!! is there an ETA on the resuming of services?
Nothing at all in Exeter, chudleigh, Devon. So angry, why don't vodafone let their customers know on their official website. Not what I pay a huge sum of money for each month.
no service in south gloucestershire,real pain as i also use this number for work !!!!
3p.m too bloody late!! Most of the day has gone.
i pay 50 pound for my contract a month and its not coming back on its been off since one oclock this morning!!!!!
Seems the Whole of the South is down not Just the South East, although I have had info from many people that vodafone is still live for them..
No service in Padstow, Cornwall. This is not good when you are trying to run a small business. Vodaphone could at least put something on their site
Why nothing on their Website?
Great security if a break in can cause so much chaos.
Nice to know this is the network you can rely on!
I think they need to rethink thier advetising, their security and their Disaster recovery.
Only good news I am leaving already.
No network in Oxford, GGGGGGGRRRRRRR
This post has been removed by the author.
The issue isn't with the radio network thats faulty, that is still up and available.
It is the ability networking that enables some handsets to register on the network, hence some people with Vodafone handsets can register on the network and make calls etc... some people can't.
I presume it's an HLR database issue or networking issue between HLR databases.
It will be luck of the draw, as to where your phones details are stored.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Location_Register#Home_location_register_.28HLR.29
Most of the coverage has gone in Cornwall. The company i work for have 145 phones and not one of them work. A slight pain but still a day without problems or bosses!! HaHa
Yes probably an HLR issue. How on earth can this have happened? There should be at least dual power feeds with diverse entries, backup power, loads of physical security, caged super sensitive kit, disaster recovery kit available at short notice, high frequency config backups, etc etc etc. Looks like Voda have driven costs down below that which is acceptable. Maybe their engineering director should take a look at some recently built government secure facilities or international network termination facilities to see how it should be done. I bet the other operators are running around seeing how exposed they are to the same sort of thing. And they probably are because their facilities are unlikely to be up to an appropriate standard either.
What on earth has the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure been up to? http://www.cpni.gov.uk/
No service at all here in Oxfordshire. Was wondering what the problem is considering the radio tower is less than 20m from my office :D
No service in Kensington London W8 at 11.30am
Last week help desk packed up because it was in Egypt
Today there is nothing on the website
Time for a massive refund form Vopaphone, do we all agree?
Manually switching my phone to use the 2G network means I can make calls and get a data service (on Edge)....
No signal in Reading or Slough. So why is Vodafone keeping quiet and why didn't the DR system kick in ??
Vodafone UK banned me from their eForum for posting this internal information: http://379.at/4F2k
They then have the cheek to send me this email! Complete fail Vodafone - myself, and my staff, will be moving elsewhere:
------
Hi,
We’ve removed five of your posts from our eForum today relating to the network outage.
The reason the posts were removed is because the information you’ve received is speculative and has not been confirmed. We are investigating this now and will provide more information as soon as it’s available.
It would be good if you could let us know who you received this message from although we understand if you choose not to.
Please do not re-post this information.
Thanks
eForum Team
No coverage in mid somerset either
Corporate websites sadly never seem to carry such vital info
devgav - your link shows the same info I got from an email which vodafone sent to me - so why are they sending me info which their forum people say is speculation?
I understand that an attack on a facility is not the norm and that Vodafone will undoubtedly be doing what they can to reinstate the service but I have to wonder about the security and backup systems deployed by Vodafone. I'm amazed that a single attack (albeit full details unknown) can knock out such a large swathe of the service across the South of England. No updates from Vodafone and no emails to customers. They say it's not the crisis itself that's a problem but how it's dealt with and customer service (communications) should be the other top priority to fixing the fault itself. Come on Vodafone... wise up.
To the Moderator of the Vodafone e-Forum: can't believe you have moderated (removed) some posts due to 'speculation'. People should be allowed to speculate - it's what creates a debate, conversation and free speach. Providing its not libellous (and even if it was, I suspect your T&Cs absolve you of any responsibility), people should be able to post their views here and others should be able to respond.
This post has been removed by the author.
No service in Royal Windsor & Maidenhead. The Queen must be royally cheesed off. Seriously though, Vodafone need to mobilize the PR team urgently and start communicating with it's customers or ignore them at their peril. Also want to know what Vodafone will be doing to help prevent this from happening again. What about compensation? The outage is hurting our business
Just found this on the Vodafone corporate website under Continuity Management...can't stop laughing!
Keeping you connected if disaster strikes: Vodafone UK Achieves BS 25999 Business Continuity Certification of its 3G Voice and Mobile Broadband Networks
Gives customers added confidence to include Vodafone’s network into their own business continuity plans
Vodafone UK was the first mobile network operator globally to achieve BS 25999 and to have its 2G and 3G networks certified.
Yeah right.
My phone was out of service from before I woke up this morning however within the last hour has sprung back to life.
Fingers crossed for everyone else too.
had no service from when I woke up in Reading ... Signal seems to intermittently coming and going at the moment.
Hi everyone,
We understand this is a difficult situation for you and we’re working hard to resolve it as quickly as possible.
In the meantime you can see a further update on this here - http://goo.gl/8FWsY
Many thanks
Lee
Web Relations Team
Vodafone UK
When will services be restored?
Voice services are now largely back up and running and we expect to be back to normal this afternoon.
Your incorrect in the fact your making, i live in Basingstoke and while services show as full bar, i can confirm that NO voice services are coming through. everything shows as a missed call without ringing the end user gets "the number you have dialled is not in service"
Thanks for the update Lee.
A few questions for you, as you're monitoring this forum.
1: Can you confirm if this site was a 24Hr manned site, or was it left unattended, as I've heard that Vodafone implemented a policy a few years ago, that all non 24 office sites would be unmanned?
2: Presuming, that anything, from a break-in to a flood, or fire could take down this or a similar site, and presuming that Vodafone anticipated this as a potential problem, why either wasn't a resilience built into the network, or why wasn't it tested as proven as working?
Could you confirm if this outage is what Vodafone considered acceptable when they designed the network, basically is the timescale what was foreseen as likely beforehand, or have they been caught out, and only now realising how poor the network is.
3: Do you believe that this issue was exaggerated by the fact that Vodafone ‘like other mobile operators’ has outsourced most of its technical staff to 3rd parties, and now rely too heavily on those outside companies for support, and has it left its own staff blind and powerless to react to network issues.
4: What exactly are these high level security measures that Vodafone has put in place, above probably CCTV, and an on-call security guard? This is not the first break-in on a Vodafone site I know of, there was Acton and Kings-Cross.
5: It has been in the news many times over the last few years, that Vodafone have been laying more and more people off, to reduce costs. This can never be done without an impact on service. It appears that Vodafone have largely got away with their decisions, mainly by luck and have now been caught out. Who makes the high level decisions within Vodafone that allowed this to happen, and presuming they are easily identifiable, will they take responsibility for this and will they be sacked?
6: Vodafone seems to always shout about how widespread and resilient their network is (far better than anyone else’s), but is this really the case, or is it reality that they are making claims based on historical data, mainly from when they were the only network, and that now they are no better than any other network, and if this is anything to go by, they appear to be worse.
7: I know 2 people that used to work for Vodafone UK, both warned of the potential problems that were coming with Vodafone down the line, and if their insight is anything to go by, you are skating on very thin ice, before the next major problem happens.
Thanks for all the comments! Really useful stuff. Here's our follow-on story: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/mobile-working/2011/02/28/vodafone-restores-connections-after-theft-outage-40091969/
no coverage in Ash Vale or Mychett at 4pm 28 Feb 2011 - fed up! why no back up?????????
Had no vm acces this morning in NW10 (North West London). People couldn't leave me on either.
Seems to be back now.
Had frustrating conversation with Vodafone this AM when i checked what was going on - posted the following facebook... just because it frustrated me so much!
"vodafone are having issues today, quote: 'like texts and phone calls' and also voice mail for me anyway I rang to check. 'so', says i, 'you mean voice mail, its not working either' - 'we're having issues'. 'Its not working?' - says I. 'No, its not working'. 'Any time-frame for resolution' says i. 'We're really sorry'. OMG who trains these people why cant they answer a straight pigging questions. arghhhhhhh"
Evasiveness is never a good aproach to customer service - when will they learn...
The problem has arisen as a result of a break in and theft of copper cabling overnight in the area of their Basingstoke Data Centre.
Vodafone engineers are on site working to restore service. An emergency action plan is being put in place which will include routing as much traffic as possible across other parts of their network to reduce customer impact. However given the nature of the incident Vodafone cannot provide exact timescales as to when full service will be restored.
Vodafone will provide further updates to customers as their remedial and contingency work progresses.
still no coverage in Basingstoke, yet Voda have sent out a statement saying the service is restored
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/mobile-working/2011/02/28/vodafone-restores-connections-after-theft-outage-40091969/
they are a joke, BT have their copper stolen not cut and its normally fixed in 4 hrs.............
Voda you are a joke! answer your customers!
Still no calls in or out for me in North Dorset. If I call my mobile from my landline, its sounds as if the number is a discontinued line...lord knows how many people think I've gone out of business. I am really very angry as my mobile is my only published business number and working in a service industry, people don't always try to email me if they need me. I'm tired of reading 'problem sorted' on Vodafone's site - I've rebooted, manual searched for a signal...all to no avail. What gets me most is the lack of information they've given to their customers - DISGUSTING.
They have to pay compensation due to loss of business to you, refuse to pay your bill. What you have to do is say that i dispute my charges, once its logged and case reference assigned they cant chase for payment. hopefully it wont come to that, and they will offer us all compensation!