Murphy: Network outages show need for investment

Data Protection Minister Dara Murphy says network outages such as that which affected up to 1.5 million Three Ireland customers on Monday are “unacceptable” and highlight the need for greater investment in mobile phone network capacity.

A spokeswoman for Three Ireland blamed an electrical failure at one of its data centres which, she said, caused an increase in temperature in the building “and then subsequently impacted some systems affecting customer service”.

As a result customers experienced, what Three described as, intermittent 2G and 3G service issues.

We're aware that customers may be having service issues. Work to resolve this will continue tonight. We'll be back online tomorrow at 9am.

— Three Ireland Care (@ThreeCare) April 6, 2015

The spokeswoman said there was no link between what happened to the service and the recent merger of O2 and Three. She also said the problem had been resolved.

The Data Protection Minister called on the country’s telecom network operators to share resources and accelerate investment in mobile phone networks, to ensure sufficient capacity to manage increased voice and data traffic, especially at peak times and during busy holiday periods.

“It is unacceptable that Ireland’s second largest mobile network — Three Ireland, should crash and remain out of service for such a long period of time, over a busy holiday weekend,” said Mr Murphy. “It raises concerns about the network’s capacity to service its 1.5 million subscribers at peak periods, while also demonstrating the critical need for Ireland’s mobile telecom operators to accelerate investment and share network resources to ensure the country has sufficient mobile data and telephony capacity in the future.”

The issue with service has now been resolved. Thanks for your patience, we apologise for any inconvenience caused.

— Three Ireland Care (@ThreeCare) April 7, 2015

The Fine Gael junior minister pointed to a recent Eircom survey, which found that eight out of every 10 Irish households now use a mobile device for communication, and also increasingly for e-commerce purchases.

“This figure is set to rapidly increase as smartphone usage continues to grow in popularity,” he said.

“Ireland’s mobile telecom’s operators therefore need to pool their resources and boost investment in the country’s mobile network infrastructure, the critical telecommunications backbone that carries increasing flows of voice and data traffic, this is the foundation of our digital economy. I have a function in ensuring we have a strong and secure data transfer network in the country.

“I think whether you are involved in business or a private citizen, it is essential we have a secure safe and robust mobile phone network even more increasingly now that people are using data transfer rather than voice calls.”

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