Angus Council’s controversial parking meters are back up and running after being hit by a day-long, UK-wide outage which affected mobile phone networks on Thursday.
O2, Tesco Mobile, Sky Mobile, Giffgaff and Lycamobile customers were left without mobile data services on their handheld devices following “global software issues” stemming from third party provider, Ericsson.
The Swedish firm said the problem was the result of “nodes” in its core network, which caused knock-on disturbances in several countries.
All of Angus Council’s off-street car park meters, which operate through O2, were left out of use due to the issues.
The machines, which were covered up following the network problems, were back up and running on Friday morning.
The local authority said people who parked while they were out of use will not be be fined by wardens – but warned people against ignoring the meters now that they have been “uncovered”.
An Angus Council spokesman said: “Parking meters affected by the O2 network’s outage yesterday are now being uncovered at off-street car parks in Angus, now the network has been restored.
“A number of vehicles were parked by their drivers before the meters were available again. This will be taken into account by wardens.
“Any vehicles parked once meters are available must be covered by a valid payment – whether by displaying a ticket from the meter, or ticketless by paying via Pay to Park online.”
Yesterday’s “high demand” from O2 customers had also led to further issues with voice calls.
On Friday morning O2, Tesco Mobile and Sky Mobile took to Twitter to inform customers that 4G issues had been resolved.
An O2 statement read: “We can now report that our 4G network has been restored. Our technical teams will continue to monitor service performance closely over the next few days to ensure we remain stable.
“A review will be carried out with Ericsson to understand fully what happened.
“We’d like to thank our customers for their patience during the loss of service on Thursday, December 6 and we’re sorry for any impact the issue may have caused.”
O2 say a “full review” into what happened is being launched.
CEO of Telefonica (O2) Mark Evans said: “I want to let our customers know how sorry I am for the impact our network data issue has had on them, and reassure them that our teams, together with Ericsson, are doing everything we can.
“We fully appreciate it’s been a poor experience and we are really sorry.”
Ericsson said the problem stemmed from an expired certificate in “two specific software versions of the SGSN–MME” – which has now been “decommissioned” by the company.
CEO of Ericsson UK & Ireland Marielle Lindgren said: “The cause of today’s network issue is in certain nodes in the core network resulting in network disturbances for a limited number of customers across the world, including in the UK.
“The faulty software that has caused these issues is being decommissioned.
“Ericsson sincerely apologises to customers for the inconvenience caused.”
Sky is offering up a day of free unlimited data on Saturday as a way of saying sorry to customers.
Our 4G network was restored earlier this morning. Our technical teams will continue to monitor service performance closely and we're starting the full review to understand what happened. We are really sorry for the issues yesterday.
— O2 in the UK (@O2) December 7, 2018
Resolved: Sky Mobile – We’re really sorry for the issues you experienced on Sky Mobile yesterday. We’re giving you a day of free unlimited UK data this Saturday 8th of Dec, so you can catch up on all the things you’ve missed. You don’t need to do a thing.
— Sky Help Team (@SkyHelpTeam) December 7, 2018
Network service update: 4G service has now been restored and is being monitored closely.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused by yesterday’s data service problems and thank you for your patience and understanding.
— Tesco Mobile (@tescomobile) December 7, 2018
