Vodafone Germany's Data Network: Kaput for 48 hours

Martin over at Wireless Moves has been nailed for half a day without data access in Germany recently. His mistake? To use Vodafone Germany.

Have a read of his experience:

I am on the road quite often and, as most of you have figured out in the meantime, a heavy user of 3G networks for Internet access. While I generally like the experience some network outages like this two and a half day nationwide full Internet access blackout in the Vodafone Germany network recently sends shivers down my spine.

After all, we are not talking about a third class operator but one that claims to be a technology leader in the sector. As I use Vodafone Internet access a lot I was glad I was only impacted for half a day, having been in a DSL save haven for the rest of the time. If I had been on the road, however, this would have been a major disaster for me.

I would go absolutely nuts, ABSOLUTELY NUTS. I’d go spare. I don’t know how I’d handle this, at all, other than rage, fury and massive, massive annoyance.

My issue wouldn’t be lack of data access. I’ve got a 3UK USB modem courtesy of the 3mobilebuzz team and an older 3UK usb modem. I could use WalkingHotspot, or copious amounts of WiFi, or actually, use my phone to get connected.

My issue is the professional abilities of Vodafone Germany’s Chief Technology Officer and his (or her) team.

Talking frankly: How shit do you have to be to let your data network go down? Obviously an outage in one small area, well, that’s an arse. But an outage across the COUNTRY? Unthinkable.

An outage ACROSS THE COUNTRY for TWENTY FOUR HOURS? Surely you’ve got to start giving money back to customers.

But an outage for 48 hours? That’s an utter shambles. A total and utter shambles. Where’s the resillience?

Forget that, where are the smart teams of people fixing it so that an initial outage doesn’t turn into a day or more? To allow a data outage to last longer than a full day, what kind of rubbish do you have to be smoking?

You’ve got an unlimited budget and the ear of every single Chief Executive of every single technology services firm in Germany ready to help you fix the outage. You need a Cisco engineer? Here, have one. It’ll cost you £5k for the day. Who cares. You need a team of 24? Fine. They’ll be there in 30 minutes. You need spare capacity? You can buy it from Deutsche for some ludicrous sum. Done. Fix it, fix it, fix it.

Data isn’t a poor third cousin. It’s a critical network service and when your infrastructure is that piss-poor and when your management is that inept to allow it to continue, well, you’re no longer a network.

100% ridiculous.

Anyway, I assume it’s back and working now.

You can read the report in the Handeslblatt here. (The link is a Google translation into English)