O2 vows to spend £10m fixing dodgy network following outage

O2 has promised to pull its socks up and fix its dodgy network, following an outage last week that saw millions of customers left with no service.

The downtime, which affected 10 per cent of O2's 16.3 million UK customers, was itself reminiscent of the much more serious network failure in July. Now it seems O2 is fed up with offering an unreliable service, and has pledged to alter the technology it uses to spew out signal.

In a blog post titled "Rebuilding your trust in our leading network," O2 boss Derek McManus says the company is "removing the Central User Database provided by one of our suppliers", which has apparently suffered two different faults in recent months. McManus says O2 will be switching to a "proven alternative system."

The operator says it's committing a chunk of loose change to fixing its network niggles, to the tune of £10 million.

"We recognise that we have dented the confidence and trust of some of our customers," O2's head honcho writes. "We will not rest until we have cemented the stability of our network and can deliver the level of service customers have come to expect of us over the last ten years."

The timing of O2's signal wobbles couldn't be worse, as rival network EE prepares to roll out the UK's first 4G service, well ahead of O2 and Vodafone. I'm sure many customers staring glumly at connection-free mobiles during the down-time will have contemplated switching to the speedy new network.

I certainly saw many unhappy O2 customers venting in our comments section during last week's mechanical mishap. "You've cost me about £600 in lost business today thanks a lot can't wait to leave this poor network," one writes, while another simply comments, "SORT YOUR LIFE OUT O2."

Are you satisfied with O2's apology and vow to stop signal breakdowns in the future? Or are you thinking of switching networks? Tell me in the comments or on our Facebook wall.