Vodacom’s network problem explained
Numerous Vodacom subscribers experienced problems with their cellular service this weekend (23 – 24 July 2011), with reports appearing online about service disruptions from both coastal and Gauteng users.
Vodacom initially only said that “We are aware of some isolated incidences but our customer care team has been successful in resolving these queries”, but more details about the problems have now surfaced.
Vodacom was hit by a triple whammy over the weekend – problems on the BlackBerry network, microwave link downtime in Sandton, and a problem with one of the company’s home location registers (HLR) affecting subscribers who did SIM migrations.
The home location register (HLR) is a central database that contains details of mobile phone subscribers authorized to use Vodacom’s network. One of the HLRs handling users who did SIM migrations went down, causing problems for Vodacom subscribers in coastal regions.
The HLR problem means that users who want to re-connect to the network had to restart their phone, which may explain the continued problems reported by users yesterday.
According to Vodacom’s official Twitter account, the BlackBerry problems were resolved on Saturday (23 July 2011). BlackBerry users were urged to reboot their phones if they were still experiencing problems.
The Microwave link downtime in Sandton was also resolved soon after the outage was reported.
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