Fri 7th March at 16:35

We are confident that this issue is now resolved.  A fix has been put in place by the other operator so that they are no longer sending the disconnect data message to our handsets.  This fix has undergone extensive testing by them to ensure it works correctly for both our customers and their own. We have also completed extensive testing today and we have not seen the issue occur again.

We will continue to monitor this closely over the coming days until we are sure this is fixed before we close this issue as resolved.

Tues 4th March @ 16:52

We are confident that we have finally got to the bottom of what is causing this issue. We have discovered that another network is sending a message to our customer’s handsets to stop it from using data.

This happens when a 48 phone loses coverage and then attempts to reconnect to the network. If the other network’s signal is stronger it picks this up first. This request should simply be rejected until the phone re-connects to 48, however in this case a message is being sent to the phone to tell it to disconnect from all data, even when 48 is picked up again.

A solution is being tested by the other network and we should have more information in the coming days. We really appreciate your patience with this issue. It has been a really complicated issue to get to the bottom of, particularly as this is another network affecting our customer’s handsets. All resources will continue to work on this until it is resolved.

Please remember, if you do lose your data connection, please just ‘power-cycle’ your phone (turn it off, wait a few seconds and turn it on again) to restore the connection.

Tues 18th Feb @ 12:00

Following a number of different changes we have implemented on our systems, we are seeing a noticeable decrease in the number of customers reporting this particular issue.  We are now closely monitoring this to see if the issue has been resolved for everyone.

You can lose your data for a number of reasons (handset issue, congestion at peak times, local signal issue, etc).  The storms over the past week have also caused disruption to signals across the country, which could also have affected your data connection. So, it can be difficult to pinpoint if a customer losing their data is related to this particular issue.

A key symptom of this issue is the E, 3G or H symbol disappearing from your phone, but you still have a signal (the signal bars) and calls/texts are working fine, it is just your data that is not working.  A restart of your phone resolves the issue and the data symbol returns to your phone.

If you are still experiencing this exact issue and the 'phone restart' fix has worked for you we really want to hear about it from you.  There are some details that would be very useful for us to have, so if you could also let us know:

• Type of phone
• What services (calls, text or data) or apps you were using at the time
• General area you were in when it happened
• Has the issue happened just once or more often?
• Did your data symbol (E, 3G, H, H+, etc) disappear while you had no data?
• Did calls and texts work while you had no data?
• What data symbol did you see before lost data (E, 3G, H, H+, etc)
• When did you notice you lost data?
• Were you on the move when it happened?         

4th February @ 15:43

We are still actively working on resolving this issue. We made a number of further updates to our systems overnight as part of this work. We are monitoring all our systems closely today to determine if these changes have fixed the issue. In the event these changes haven’t been successful it will help us narrow the focus to other potential reasons for customers losing their data connection.

Please let us know here on this Community post if you have lost 3G internet connection again today (after 6am on Tuesday 4th February).  Also, please let us know if you have been repeatedly losing your 3G connection and it now appears to be stable again.  Your updates here will help us determine the success of these changes.

Remember, a ‘power-cycle’ of your phone will resolve the issue if it happens to you.

Tues 28th Jan @ 17:10

Just a quick update on the investigations into this issue. Due to the ongoing nature of it a dedicated investigation team from a number of our service providers will be working on it until the issue is resolved. A number of further tests are planned overnight and tomorrow morning to get to the root cause. I will continue to provide updates here on the progress of these tests.

Please remember, if you do lose your data connection, power-cycling (turn off and on again) your phone will restore the connection