O2's titsup network struggles to find its feet

Have you tried switching it off and on again?

O2's mobile network is struggling to its feet after a 19-hour outage left thousands of customers unable to make or receive calls. This morning 2G should be working again but 3G remains patchy.

That's according to the sluggish status page, which, between apologies, claims the 3G service is slowly being revived.

The telco admits that punters might get a better connection by switching their mobiles off and on, or perhaps just temporarily disabling 3G networking and dropping down to the restored 2G system.

The outage kicked off at lunchtime yesterday, but as it was related to O2's sudden inability to attach handsets and devices to its network, it didn't hit everyone at the same time.

In the normal run of things phones periodically reattach to the network, and as that process failed customers were gradually booted off while other users remained connected, much to their irritation.

The outage also hit the virtual networks camped on O2's infrastructure, including Tesco Mobile and O2-owned GiffGaff.

Some El Reg readers are reporting successful connections, so the situation is gradually improving. The telco told us in a statement:

Customers affected may wish to try switching their mobile phones off and on as service returns. We are sorry again for the inconvenience this has caused and can provide reassurance that we continue to deploy all possible resources and will do so until full service is restored.

Once the network is up we'll be asking O2 what went wrong and (more importantly) what's being done to ensure it doesn't happen again. ®