Tesco Broadband collapses like the supermarket’s profits
More bad news for Tesco, as its broadband network suffers a major outage
Many Tesco Broadband customers were left without service for much of yesterday, as the company struggled to get to grips with a widespread outage. The outage started yesterday morning and it was late evening before many customers reported that their service had been restored.
Tesco Broadband currently runs on Vodafone’s fixed-line network, but Tesco’s broadband arm was recently bought out by TalkTalk. TalkTalk told ISPreview that the process of shifting customers from one network to the other hadn’t started yet, ruling out migration issues as a possible cause of the outage.
The @TescoBroadband Twitter account first reported major problems yesterday lunchtime. “We’re aware that customers around the country are experiencing issues with bb service currently,” the company’s feed stated. “We’re investigating and will update ASAP.”
By early evening, the company was still having trouble identifying the cause of the outage. “Search for the issue is narrowing, will have a further update in 30mins,” @TescoBroadband tweeted at around 6pm last night. Shortly afterwards, the company was seemingly relying on the power of superstition to restore services. “We are seeing customers coming back online, waiting for more confirmation….#FingersCrossed”
An update from the account this morning says that services have been restored, but that customers should restart their routers if they are still having problems establishing a broadband connection.
In a statement sent to Expert Reviews, Tesco said: “The problem affecting some customers yesterday was caused by a technical failure at a network level. The issue was identified and resolved last night and service has been resumed.”
It’s not been a great 24 hours for Tesco. This morning, the company reported an annual loss of £6.4 billion, the largest loss in British retail history.