Today's Service Outage

gaffer · ‎16-03-2012

As you very likely to be already aware, today we've suffered a major service outage - it was caused by major water damage to the computer network in a our data centre and it took nearly 8 hours fix.

Firstly I'd like to offer my apologies for the interruption in service and thank all of our members for their patience whilst we fixed the issue.

The service is largely back up and running now - the exception is new activations which are currently being queued and our service teams are working on a fix.

Some of you have asked about compensation - we're going to focus on fixing the issues we've had and make sure we have a stable service first - and then we'll sit down think of ways to make it up to you.

We'll continue to post updates on the support community so click here for the latest news.

Thanks once again for your patience.

Mike Fairman

CEO giffgaff

Update 21:15

Thanks for everyone's comments - especially those appreciating our way of keeping you up to date!

In response to a few of the issues raised...

Porting - those that were scheduled for today may have been delayed - we're continuing to work on these as fast as we can.

Texts - we think that for most of the outage, inbound text messages should have been delivered. Whether those that failed initially will ultimately be delivered will be determined largely by the re-try policies of the network from which they were sent. In other words, you may or may not get them depending on which network sent them.

Root cause - we will of course investigate this and report on the conclusions. Our data centre does have an uninterruptable power supply and backup generators but its possible that even if these worked the water damage to the network gear was sufficient to bring the service down.

snarfington · ‎18-03-2012

Great service, I knew when I signed up for Giffgaff that there might be problems with fast communication if there was an issue, but it turned out that with this downtime the contact with staff and updates on info were actually better than with any network I've been on. Thanks.

pinklady1988 · ‎18-03-2012

To all those saying no to compensation, thats your choice so if offered il expect to see the queue of you saying no to whatever the offer may be. People see compensation as a cash settlement, which it normally is but it doesnt have to be. If the compensation offered was some new agents, proper agent training so they read cases properly, a back up plan for future loss of service would you still be saying no thanks? Il wait to see what the offer is before deciding which network to go to or wheather to stay. A few quid credit would be an insult, like iv previously said this issue keeps happening but we get a different excuse each time the compensation this time needs to be useful to prevent future cases like this.

lintu3 · ‎18-03-2012

It is happening again today! I cannot call or text to anyone. What the hell is going on? Why would the water that has burst effect the network coverage?? I'm appalled about this service, I only just started to use giffgaff and now this happening already. Please resolve this matter immediately.

patelr · ‎18-03-2012

It's interesting reading all the comments from people giving GG a pat on the back for telling its customers what the root cause was etc. For any telecoms provider not to have regularly tested continuity plans is very poor. The burst water pipe is exactly the type of scenario you plan for. This happens in the same week when many customers had already had almost 3 days outage of service due to an upgrade on the network (which by the way resulted in £20 compensation credited to accounts). My own experience has also included another 3 days without service when porting my number into GG and also issues with my first goodybag topup - all these issues in the first 6 weeks of use and it's not just me being unlucky there are lots of similar cases if you read the blogs. How can you grow a community when the expectation you have to give to new customers is that they might be without a working service for few days every now and then? Yes it is the cheapest deal but not cheap enough to expect people to be without service for such long periods.

ajpj · ‎18-03-2012

Interesting to note that clients due to have numbers ported on 16.03.2012, still have a "dead" phone ...... Worrying ! ..... Issues like this will obviously concern any normal customer when making an assessment of the "teleco" they have entrusted with their business ...... Perhaps GG should only be viewed as a "social" telephone airtime supplier where one is able to save only a few pounds per month, ... If you can live with occasional loss of service, whilst the company concentrates on growth rather than stability.... It would have been mildly comforting to see some kind of announcement regarding Friday's porting procedure with some indication as to what those affected can expect in the coming days ......

torkington · ‎18-03-2012

These things happen and it was an inconvenience for me and my buddies because we use our phones for business purposes. LOL in reality it was a bit of a bonus.........Information about what is going on is very important and that makes all the difference. If you know the problem then it is in reality no big deal, especially since the service was back [for me anyway] in a decent period of time. What bad luck eh. On a Friday of all days. I sincerely doubt a problem like this would have been handled better by most of the other operators.

This has done nothing to dent my loyalty to GG in fqact, probably convinced me that its not misplaced. The offer of some form of compensation later when the dust has settled, is generous in thought and the fact it is offered without rancour is something you just do not get with other operators.

Well don to the team for resolving as quickly as possible.

james_wright_uk · ‎18-03-2012

I'm still having problems. Texting is ok and so are calls, but the internet is not working at all for me. I was able to connect a couple of days ago, but I haven't been able to do so over the last 2 days. I've installed the giffgaff settings so I can't see what I'm doing wrong. Are full services not up and running yet?

I'm a new user and now considering a different company already.

david_foster · ‎18-03-2012

Thanks for keeping everyone updated, Mike. Some of us at least appreciate your efforts to put things right and keep us informed.

Out here in the real world stuff like this simply happens from time to time - and if anyone doesn't believe me, it so happens that our local phone exchange in a piddling little mid-Hampshire village went down at the same time on the same day, so we lost our landline as well.

sirus1982 · ‎18-03-2012

People stop moaning, I'm mean really u r getting a great service at a cheap rate and still people ask for something extra for the outage? These people have done a great job in setting this up so u get the cheapest service and people moan over one outage pull ur selfsame together these things happen and we where all kept up to date on the problem. I think a big thanks to giffgaff for sorting this out is what u moaning people should b doing. Think how much u have saved for joining stop asking and start giving some appreciation for what they have done for u already.

bizdav · ‎18-03-2012

Thanks, i can safely say this is the first time on any network that i have been on that i have recieved upto date info on what is happening, Thumbs up GiffGaff, keep up the good work!