Fingers pointed towards 3G work for Three network outage

While the full-extent of the network outage has not been unveiled just yet, some are suggesting maintenance on the firms 3G network is the root cause.

Three has confirmed it was a change to the network which was being made overnight on Wednesday [October 16] which caused the outage, but it is being elusive with the specifics. Either it doesn’t know, which we doubt, or it doesn’t want to say.

There does appear to be customers who are struggling to connect to voice, SMS and data services, though the majority of the issues seem to have been settled. Networks appear to be up-and-running, and now the work begins to understand the cause of the outage. Perhaps more importantly, the team will also want to figure out how to ensure this incident does not occur again.

“Following the technical difficulties with our services yesterday, the majority of our customers can now make calls, send texts and use data,” Three said in a statement.

“Our engineers have worked overnight and are continuing to iron out a few remaining issues from a technical perspective. While voice and text have returned to normal, unfortunately a small number of customers may continue to experience intermittent issues with data.

“To help with the process we advise our customers to turn their phones off and on or turn airplane mode on and off, which will in most cases resolve the issue by resetting your phone’s connection to the network.”

Although the ‘turn it off and turn it on again’ request will infuriate a few, it is usually the best way to get things fixed. Three is suggesting the problems are in the past and it will be hoping its reputation has not taken too much of a hit.

Unfortunately for the team, there was a bit of a misguided attempt at humour during the saga. In one tweet, Three suggests O2 had unplugged its 3G network when plugging in its own 5G infrastructure, though a few commentators noted that it might have been a bit funnier if there weren’t customers continuing through the data-less struggle.

Looking at the root cause of the issue, there is still some ambiguity. Some have suggested it might have been teething problems for the new cloud core, being supplied by Nokia, though Three has denied this. Other reports have emerged suggesting maintenance and repairs on 3G infrastructure could be the reason.

The 3G work is an interesting angle, as while Three is attempting to switch-off 3G in pursuit of re-farming valuable spectrum for 4G and 5G, this is still a work in progress.

Interestingly enough, while the process of switching-off 3G networks is one which is gaining popularity, spectrum is a valuable resource after all, it might have a negative impact on the 2G networks which are still running.

Although it might seem unusual to discuss 2G in today’s world, a report from Tech UK suggests the need for 2G services is likely to continue into the 2030s. The services are still being made use of by the elderly, rural users and M2M applications, this will not change in the immediate future. If telcos are switching off 3G, the demand of these areas cannot be offset meaning 2G networks will have to be maintained for the foreseeable future.

“We sometimes focus on technology without fully understanding the impact on services people rely on,” said Tony Lavender, chair of the Spectrum Policy Forum Steering Board.

“Among other things, 2G enables smart metering and the mobile phones used by many vulnerable people in society. We need to think through the alternatives for these services before switching them off.”

While hiccups are rare in the connectivity world, they are certainly not unheard of. Last year, inadequacies from Ericsson resulted in an expired software license crashing O2’s network in the UK and Softbank’s in Japan. At the time of writing, Verizon is also entering the domain of damage control after users faced the connectivity baron land in the North-east and the Mid-west.

What is unclear is what the financial impact of the outage will be. As has been shown with the O2 network outage last year, consumers do not immediately flood towards the exit when services crash for an extended period of time. Three’s network does not crash regularly, therefore customers will likely tolerate this incident, but it might end up costing the firm a few million in compensation.