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O2 has finally explained why its customers have been without internet for hours .
The phone network has blamed a software problem at one of its suppliers, suggesting that the issue could be affecting other carriers too.
Customers of O2 – as well as other networks that rely on its infrastructure, like GiffGaff and Tesco Mobile – have been unable to get online since early in the morning.
Phones simply cannot connect to the internet and there is very little their users can do . There appears to be very little progress with fixing it.
But the company has finally explained why the problem has occurred, as well as committing once again to fix it as soon as possible.
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"One of our third party suppliers has identified a software issue in their system," O2 said. "Our technical teams are working extremely hard to resolve this. We’d encourage you to use Wi-Fi wherever you can and we are really sorry."
O2 does allow people to connect to the internet using BT's open WiFi networks, and there may be other ways of getting online .
The post followed another tweet in which the company admitted to the issues and directed people to O2's service status page . That site allows people to check if the network is still down – but appears to have run into some technical issues of its own .
"We are aware our customers are unable to use data this morning," it posted earlier. "Our technical teams are working on the issue with high priority. We are really sorry and working as hard and as fast as we can to fix this."
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