Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2014/08/30/ee_says_broken_fibre_cable_killed_t_mobile_network_on_friday/

EE fails to apologise for HUGE T-Mobile outage that hit Brits on Friday

Customer: 'Please change your name to occasionally somewhere'

By Kelly Fiveash

Posted in Networks, 30th August 2014 14:15 GMT

Updated Many T-Mobile customers in the UK were without access to the EE-owned network on Friday, after the service went titsup due to a "broken fibre cable".

EE said this morning that its engineers had worked overnight to get the network back up and running, but it surprisingly didn't apologise for the major disruption to its service in a statement explaining the cause of the technical problem on its customer forum.

T-Mobile customers began complaining that the network had died on them early on Friday morning.

The Register was still hearing from readers late yesterday, many of whom - we're disappointed to report - were disgusted with EE's handling of the issue.

"T-Mobile customers on the EE network have had no data connections since 8am this morning (29th August)," said Reg reader Philip. "As always no real response from EE only saying a fibre problem has caused the downtime with no apparent redundancy. Note that this fault is national and not just isolated to some regions."

While Reg reader James told us: "Their customer service and PR has been appalling."

It comes after El Reg reported earlier in the week about claims that EE routinely attempts to silence critical posts on its social media pages. An EE spokesman strongly denied those allegations when quizzed by your correspondent.

EE posted this explanation about the network's wobbles on its customer forum this morning:

I'm pleased to report that the broken fibre cable that was affecting data access for customers on T-Mobile plans has been fixed. Our engineering teams and a fibre splicing team worked through the night to migrate data from the broken fibre to a new cable that was installed near our switch site in West London.

We are still performing testing to ensure that the equpment [sic] is robust and everything is performing as it should. But I'm glad to hear your reports that the data service is back up and running.

Thank you all for your patience.

But, it would seem, sorry is the hardest word for EE. ®

Update

EE has since been in touch following the publication of this story. A spokesman at the communications company said:

We posted hourly updates on the T-Mobile data issues all day on Friday for customers with repeated apologies.