Segments of the Orange mobile network flaked out during the week; particularly on Wednesday night, but Orange says everything's fine now and not to worry about a thing.

Reports of network failure started to come in during the first part of the week, but culminated on Wednesday evening when all aspects of the network started failing between 19.00 and 21.00, leaving punters unable to connect for voice calls, messaging or data.

In a statement, Orange told us they were very sorry, and everything is all fixed now. Pushed to explain the problem we have been told that investigations continue; so either they've no idea why the network failed, or they do know but would prefer to wait until everyone is looking the other way before mentioning it.

When the Skype network failed we made much of their inability to run as a "proper" network, and many readers felt that anyone relying on a two-bit operator like Skype deserved what they got.

But companies like Orange and Vodafone are supposed to be proper networks, with proper reliability, and even if they are working to reduce their outgoings it shouldn't be at the expense of that reliability: unless customers are happy with failing networks if they can get cheap calls.

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