A problem with a router disrupted 4G services on Vodafone’s mobile network yesterday evening.
“At around 6.30pm yesterday, we experienced an issue which impacted part of our network, resulting in intermittent disruption to voice, text and data services,” a Vodafone spokesperson said.
“Mobile services were progressively restored from 10.45pm, with the majority of customers fully restored at 1.35am.”
When 4G services were unavailable, Vodafone customers’ mobile services should have automatically downgraded to 3G and 2G services. However, network congestion affected the process.
“A small portion of our customer base is this morning reporting some continued intermittent disruption to services,” the spokesperson said.
“We are working to restore these customers’ mobile experience as soon as possible. We thank our customers for their patience and apologise for the inconvenience caused.”
Some customers of the telco used the ‘#Vodafail’ hashtag on social media to express their displeasure — a hashtag first popularised in late 2010 when customers on the telco’s network experienced a range of performance problems including slow data speeds and dropped calls.
Since then Vodafone has invested heavily in its mobile network, with the telco getting closer to profitability, growing customer numbers, and registering a drop in complaints.
Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman figures released in July revealed that of Australia's big three telcos, Vodafone had the lowest number of complaints per 10,000 services in operation.
Rival Telstra has this year been hit with a number of outages. In response, the telco has pledged to spend millions boosting network resilience.