O2 apologises for iPhone 4 glitch

Pre-order invites go Pete Tong

O2 has apologised to the small number of customers who suffered a service outage this morning.

The network invited its "highest spending" customers the chance to pre-order iPhone 4's ahead of the official launch.

But an upset Reg reader woke this morning to find no service on his iPhone. He had been contacted by O2 with an offer of a pre-order the night before and had accepted.

He phoned customer support and said he thought it might be connected to the pre-order. They confirmed it was, and that he was not alone in his problem, and gave him a free day's line rental.

It seems someone pushed the button too early. The changeover requires a move to micro-SIMs - used in the iPhone 4.

A spokeswoman for O2 told us: “We are offering some of our highest spending customers the opportunity to place their order ahead of the 24th and receive the device tomorrow.

“Of those customers, a very small number experienced an interruption of service this morning as we prepared to transfer their numbers.  Service has now been restored to most of them, or will be shortly.

“We apologise for the inconvenience this has caused.”

But surely missing a few phone calls is a small price to pay for the honour of an early iPhone 4? ®