Customers in the UK are still waiting for the O2 network to be restored, following a series of outages caused by software issues with Ericsson equipment.
The issues affected network equipment on the O2 network, as well as on Japan’s Softbank network.
Softbank problems have been resolved, and that network is back up and running, while engineers are working through the night in an attempt to have the O2 network fully functional by Friday morning.
In a statement, Ericsson says if identified an issue in certain nodes in the core network resulting in network disturbances for a limited number of customers in multiple countries using two specific software versions of the SGSN–MME (Serving GPRS Support Node – Mobility Management Entity).
Börje Ekholm, president and CEO of Ericsson, says: “The faulty software that has caused these issues is being decommissioned and we apologize not only to our customers but also to their customers. We work hard to ensure that our customers can limit the impact and restore their services as soon as possible.”
The statement adds that an initial root cause analysis indicates that the main issue was an expired certificate in the software versions installed with these customers. A complete and comprehensive root cause analysis is still in progress.
The company’s focus is now on solving the immediate issues, according to the statement.
During the course of the day (6 December), most of the affected customers’ network services have been successfully restored. “We are working closely with the remaining customers that are still experiencing issues.”