Verizon Wireless said it has fixed a software issue that caused customers east of the Mississippi to not receive mobile data or get 3G at pathetic speeds.
he nation’s largest mobile operator said there was a bad switch software at one of their data centers that caused slower data speeds, or no access at all to the 3G network. The network was suffering for about four hours and Verizon did not say how many users were impacted. Voice networks were not impacted.
The outage itself is somewhat understandable – I think most customers are okay with an occasional outage if the company clearly explains it and possibly offers compensation. People know that stuff can happen and if this only goes down once a year, it’s not too bad.
But Verizon has been touting the strength of its network for as long as I can remember with that “Can you hear me now?” guy and it has been being aggressive against AT&T with its “There’s a map for that” advertising campaign. If you’re going to be talking so much trash, you have to back it up with service Verizon.
A recent PCWorld 3G performance test said Big Red’s average download speeds decreased by 8% compared to last year. It appears Verizon is struggling to cope with the demand of data-hungry users on devices like the Droid. To make matters worse, hated rival AT&T was the top overall carrier in that test after years of being a punchline. AT&T rightly deserves to be criticized for its past performances but no U.S. carrier has ever had to deal with the data requirements of something like the iPhone.
Again, I don’t want to make too much out of one snafu that lasted for four hours but it will be fun to see if Verizon’s network can handle what’s coming.
[Via ComputerWorld]