Spark Mobile issues in Auckland CBD 5pm ?

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Spark Mobile issues in Auckland CBD 5pm ?

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#1236165 11-Feb-2015 23:06

@IceFragmatic, that was what the press said, not what Spark said. :)

My views are my own, and may not necessarily represent those of my employer.

matisyahu

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#1236175 11-Feb-2015 23:29

Had some issues in J-Ville but everything is ok now - these things happen and one moves on with life.

"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the People's Stick'"

gzt

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#1236182 12-Feb-2015 00:00

Spark users in Ak telling me are receiving some calls and txt but no outgoing.

gzt

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#1236183 12-Feb-2015 00:02

Maybe someone unplugged the one server that makes the system failsafe? ; )

Zippity

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#1236195 12-Feb-2015 01:10

Ihug's email is down.

Zippity

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#1236208 12-Feb-2015 06:54

Back up this morning

sbiddle

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#1236213 12-Feb-2015 07:13

Zippity: Back up this morning

That tends to happen with planned maintenance.

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nakedmolerat

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#1236221 12-Feb-2015 07:26

What caused the problem?

gzt

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#1236222 12-Feb-2015 07:34

People posting randomly in the wrong topic.

gjen

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#1236534 12-Feb-2015 13:23

Spark outage traced to corrupt data

Last updated 10:45, February 12 2015

Joseph Johnson

MOBILE OUTAGE: Customers across the country had only about a one-in-four to one-in-three chance of placing calls or texts during the worst of the outage yesterday.

The cause of the outage that largely took out Spark's mobile network yesterday evening has been traced to a corrupted data file sent in error by an Asian phone company.

Customers across the country had only about a one-in-four to one-in-three chance of placing calls or texts during the worst of the outage between 5.30pm and 8.30pm, chief operating officer David Havercroft said.

Customers from Hamilton north were the worst affected by the fault which also prevented 111 calls being made and took out mobile broadband.

Havercroft said the fault had been traced to a corrupted automated message sent by a large "reputable" Asian carrier which was intended to update Spark on which of its customers should be allowed to roam in New Zealand on Spark's network.

Spark received hundreds of such messages from phone companies around the world each day that were processed automatically by the network's core computer system, he said.

However, the corrupted message had a missing digit and a piece of equipment supplied by Cisco was swamped by error messages when it tried to process the command.

"The number range it was telling the system to cancel off the network was truncated and the system got into a loop trying to take hundreds of thousands of numbers off the network."

That had a domino effect on another piece of equipment which shed New Zealand customers intermittently in an effort "protect the network", Havercroft said.

Cisco was working on a patch for the fault, which Havercroft believed was unprecedented, and which he hoped would be in place within days.

Spark was unlikely to seek compensation from Cisco or the Asian carrier and would only consider compensating its own customers on a case-by-case basis if they complained, he said.

Havercroft said he was pleased with the way Cisco had responded. "We will be having a conversation with them about why there weren't other protections built in to stop this happening."

While Spark was "massively disappointed" it could not guarantee 100 per cent up-time, he said.

Customers could expect on average a couple of hours of disruption each year, he said.

The outage rekindled memories of the errors that struck the network in 2009 and 2010 when it was called XT. They prompted Spark, then Telecom, to ditch the XT brand and film a series public televised apologies that featured former chief executive Paul Reynolds flying fishing and appealing for a "second chance"

http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/66085822/spark-outage-traced-to-corrupt-data

gzt

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#1236557 12-Feb-2015 13:52

Spectacular fail. On the face of it sounds like a newb file processing error. Also lack of security reality check but maybe that is difficult to enforce at this level due to the nature of the industry. Looks like it will improve ; ).

matisyahu

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#1237710 14-Feb-2015 02:37

Oh good lord - reading the comments on the Stuff link should be used as reference for people who should be prohibited from having kids and voting.

"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the People's Stick'"

Stu

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#1237745 14-Feb-2015 08:25

Same with the postings on their Facebook page. I think the thread was removed once the issue was resolved.

People often mistake me for an adult because of my age.

Keep calm, and carry on posting.

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old3eyes

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#1237753 14-Feb-2015 08:46

I was traveling from AKL to Tauranga, Had 3G data all the way but no voice. Thought OK I'll use my 2Talk line but found it wouldn't register. Got to TGA and on WiFi it still wouldn't register so something to look at when I get back to AKL..

Regards,

Old3eyes

sbiddle

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#1237771 14-Feb-2015 09:38

kawaii: Oh good lord - reading the comments on the Stuff link should be used as reference for people who should be prohibited from having kids and voting.

That is 99% of the comments on Stuff articles.

I seriously have no idea why Fairfax think comments on stories is a good idea.

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