Remember the outrage from folk about o2’s 128k 3G ‘limitations’? (Whatley, for example, was seriously under impressed.)
Well I heard from o2’s PR today and the issue is actually simply a provisioning error. Here’s their statement:
The vast majority of our 3G customers are able to access the internet on their mobile device at speeds of up to 384 kbps or typically up to 1.3 mbps if they have an HSDPA-enabled device. The O2 network is fully HSDPA enabled and we will be further increasing the maximum speeds available on HSDPA throughout the year, up to 7.2 MBps.
Because of a provisioning error which came to our attention last week, a small proportion of our 3G customers have not been getting these higher speeds.
We apologise to those customers who were affected. The issue is simple to fix and we will be doing so this week.
Good news!
PLEASE tell me the PR was addressed: “Dear Techie Nerd…”
😀
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/09/o2_accidental_call/
Whatleydude’s last blog post..Things to make and do…
any view on whether this is a convenient way out of a bad PR spot? What happened to the hordes of users who reported max 128k connections?
Smells a bit Fox News to me. In a bind? Caught with trousers down? Issue a ‘provisioning system ate my homework’ release and act like it’s the truth!
/m
Perhaps the hordes who reported the issue were actually the geeks — your average chappy on the street probably wouldn’t notice (or care too much). It sounds like it could well be a genuine mistake on o2’s part — either way it’ll be sorted by the end of the week hopefully.
elReg’s new article goes further:
“This would all make more sense if it wasn’t a clear reversal of the position it explained to us last week, when it rationalised its lower than industry standard speeds in terms of “user profiles”, “industry norms” and “bandwidth allocations”.”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/15/o2_denies_caps/
If you are going to tell porkies to your customers (sorry, ‘muppets / techie nerds’), at least be consistent 😉
/m