Vodafone text delays: “buyer beware”
Monday, May 10th, 2010“Vodafone fault delays text messages” (Stuff 6 May 2010) - “People’s text messages have been delayed for several hours after a faulty Vodafone computer server hung on to messages, rather than passing them on.”
Is there an apology? Is there a statement assuring us this is unacceptable and won’t happen again? Do Vodafone even seem to care? Based on that article, apparently not.
The story I’m aware of involves a woman waiting at a bus stop for over an hour at 7pm wondering why her partner isn’t responding to her texts or picking her up ( the messages finally arrived, at midnight). When “99% of texts are delivered in under a minute” you tend to expect that 100% are - and certainly not some hours later.
One question is, “When was the fault discovered?” And the answer is unsatisfactory whatever it is.
- It was discovered quite soon - in which case why didn’t Vodafone send a broadcast message indicating a network problem so that important communications could be switched to voice?
- It was discovered after a number of hours - in which case, how can their systems not have any in-built warnings or alerts for a critical service?