O2 down compensation: Free credit and airtime package revealed for users after day without service

Andrew Griffin
Friday 07 December 2018 14:12 GMT
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O2 4G is working again: What to do if you were affected

O2 has revealed the compensation package it will offer to customers hit by its data outage.

Both pay monthly and pay as you go customers will receive free time after they were left entirely without data for a whole day.

Pay monthly customers will be given two free days on their contract. And pay as you go customers will get 10 per cent of their credit for free.

"We’re very sorry about yesterday’s data issue," an O2 spokesperson said. "We understand how important it is to stay connected, especially at this time of year."

It said it would be "in touch with our customers soon" about the compensation package, which varies depending on how users pay for their subscription.

Pay monthly, business customers and those buying O2's mobile broadband will be credited with two days of monthly airtime subscription charges, the company said.

Pay as you go customers will be given a 10 per cent credit on a top up in the new year. They will be informed about when that is available.

And pay as you go customers on O2's mobile broadband will also be given a 10 per cent discount on a Bolt On purchase in the new year.

All of O2's 30 million customers are thought to have been hit by the outage, and so will be receiving the free package.

Customers do not appear to need to do anything to get the refund, and will either be contacted to alert them to it or will just receive the additional airtime added to their bill.

It is not clear whether customers of the networks that were also offline because they rely on O2's infrastructure – such as GiffGaff and Tesco Mobile – will also be getting refunds from their carriers.

The outage caused problems across the UK, including in some unusual places, such as live bus arrivals at bus stops, which rely on O2's data connection.

It lasted for almost a full day, going down early in the morning and with service only being restored overnight the following evening.

O2 said the issues were caused by problems with software provided by Ericsson. It also caused problems elsewhere in the world, such as at Japan's Softbank.

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