Comment by setquk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by setquk | Hacker News Reader

Edit: UK outage vendor confirmed as Ericsson: https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-o2telefonica-outages/erics...

Old paranoia filled post left below for reference. Thanks to saaaaaam for pointing the above link out.

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There's something going on here, political or technical.

O2/Telefonica subcontracted out a lot of their core to Huawei in 2012 [1]. Literally today, after their CFO was arrested in Canada [2], we've been hit with a massive telecoms outage here in the UK which has taken out data / SMS. O2 have stated that it's due to one of their technology provider's software [3].

Edit: Giffgaff (virtual provider) have also stated that this is a global problem which is even more worrying [4]

I hope this is a coincidence.

We've had data down here in UK from 0500 to 14:00 so far...

China stock is falling, this happened, Huawei already have a somewhat iffy reputation and now BT is throwing out news about jumping ship from them suddenly.

[1] http://telecoms.com/44197/huawei-wins-managed-services-deal-...

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46465768

[3] https://twitter.com/O2/status/1070612301110226944

[4] https://twitter.com/giffgaff/status/1070674248606339072

The outage was apparently caused by Ericssons software: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/dec/06/o2-customer... - our domestic, trustworthy and great company.

But it's sad to see that Chinese scaremongering propaganda is so effective even on educated people.

I think it's still valid but at the same time our stuff is crap too.

The Chinese equipment isn't being rejected because it can fail. It's because Chinese companies aren't as separate from the government as in the West. And they don't trust China of course.

It’s being reported that the outage is probably related to Ericsson.

“The company said that the problem stemed from a global software issue at a third-party supplier, understood to be Ericsson, which has also affected other mobile operators around the world.”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/dec/06/o2-customer...

Edit: also apparently confirmed by Ericsson themselves.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-o2telefonica-outages/erics...

Interesting - thanks for posting!

You’re welcome!

> Edit: Giffgaff (virtual provider) have also stated that this is a global problem which is even more worrying

They're virtual, but wholly owned by the same parent as O2 (Telefónica).

Huawei is rumored to have backdoored the African Union and Trump has been pushing other countries to get tough on China in general for stealing IP. This is essentially an extension of the trade war and valid fears that the Chinese government may be spying on you if you use Huewei

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