There was a significant outage for UK mobile broadband provider Orange on Thursday with customers unable to access the Internet and Blackberry users unable to access their e-mail is on the move. While the problem has since been solved there is concern that the issue dragged on for a number of hours which left many customers without Internet access or access to their e-mails.
Orange has apologised to customers for the problems which appear to have begun at 9 AM on Thursday due to what it claims was vandalism of critical service cables in the Heathrow area. The fact that the system was down for at least seven or eight hours has concerned many Orange users who work from home and on the move. While it has to be said that the 1 million Orange broadband users in the UK were kept well informed of the situation upon ringing the company, this could not have come at a worse time when you consider the announcement of the potential merger with T-Mobile.
If nothing else, the issues which dogged Orange on Thursday again highlight the fact that the Internet, and mobile broadband, is becoming part of our everyday lives and it can be difficult for some people to operate efficiently without access to their e-mails and Internet on the move.