Data centre failure takes 1.5mn Three customers offline in Ireland
Tue 7 Apr 2015
The Three mobile phone network was brought down by an electrical failure at one of the company’s data centres on Easter Monday, affecting up to 1.5mn of its 2mn Irish customers.
According to Three the network disruption occurred due to an electrical fault which triggered an increase in temperature at the facility, consequently impacting some of the systems and pulling many offline.
The failure resulted in customers experiencing intermittent 2G and 3G mobile data services, as well as difficulties in making phone calls and sending and receiving text messages. Reportedly the issue mainly disrupted former O2 customers who transferred over to the Three network recently after the 2014 merger of the two telecom operators in Ireland.
It is understood that some customers also experienced problems with using the Three website and accessing customer service platforms.
The temporary outage had a roll-on effect, affecting Tesco Mobile customers who are also connected over the same mobile virtual network.
A spokesperson for Three Ireland said that the company’s engineers were able to resolve the system error on a “staggered basis”, and that they had managed to completely fix the issue by 2am this morning.
The official Three Ireland Twitter account relayed an apology to customers: “Some customers may be experiencing issues with their service. We’re working on getting this fixed ASAP. Sorry for any inconvenience caused.
“We’re aware that customers may be having service issues. Work to resolve this will continue tonight.”
The Three mobile network is currently the second largest mobile operator in Ireland. It holds a 32% market share, compared with market leader Vodafone’s 39%. The company’s penetration advanced significantly following its acquisition of O2 from Telefonica for over €850mn last June – the same day it experienced a similar network outage.
The Hong Kong-based group continued its consolidation efforts across Europe acquiring O2 in the UK for £10.25bn in January this year.
