Du apologises for 6-hour network disruption

20/03/2017 07:42 AST

A country-wide network failure that affected hundreds of mobile phone users of Dubai-based telecom operator du on Sunday took 10 minutes shy of six hours to resolve. A spokesperson for the company told Gulf News that the cause of the major outage in the UAE has been identified and that technical teams spent five hours and 50 minutes to resolve it. The operator assured that the cause of the glitch has already been identified, adding that it has apologised to its subscribers for the inconvenience caused.

Mobile phone users who may still be experiencing some issues today are advised to restart their device.

Restart phone, re-insert your SIM “If you are experiencing any difficulties while using our mobile services, kindly restart your handset or re-insert your SIM,” du told subscribers. Several UAE residents complained early on Sunday that they were unable to access the Internet, make and receive calls or SMS, with WiFi and mobile network connections reportedly down since 9am.

Complaints were mainly from mobile phone users. Residents subscribed to du's home services said they didn't notice any disruption. “We identified the root cause and our technical teams responded swiftly to resolve it. We apologise for the inconvenience,” du said in a statement sent to Gulf News. The company didn't comment on the cause of the service disruption, although some subscribers said they were told there was a problem with the billing system.

Mobile phone users in the UAE took to social media to complain about the outage. Subscribers, both on prepaid and post-paid accounts in Dubai and other emirates, including Abu Dhabi and Fujairah, said they experienced issues for hours.

“I was driving near International City when I noticed I could not access the Internet. I thought it was just poor network signal,” one European expatriate who maintains a post-paid account, told Gulf News.

Some customers who called up du’s customer service were advised that there had been technical issues with regards to the company’s billing system, which may have contributed to the delay.

“My voice signal’s been on and off for the past hour, no data since early morning. I called them at around 9am earlier, the [customer service agent] told me that they had issues with their billing system which might explain the sudden cut-offs,” said another subscriber.

Gulfnews