Update On Software Issue Impacting Certain Customers

Following network disturbances in a number of Ericsson’s customer networks, Ericsson has taken immediate action to minimize impact and support the restoration of services.

During December 6, 2018, Ericsson has identified an issue in certain nodes in the core network resulting in network disturbances for a limited number of customers in multiple countries using two specific software versions of the SGSN–MME (Serving GPRS Support Node – Mobility Management Entity).

Börje Ekholm, President and CEO, Ericsson, says: “The faulty software that has caused these issues is being decommissioned and we apologize not only to our customers but also to their customers. We work hard to ensure that our customers can limit the impact and restore their services as soon as possible.”

An initial root cause analysis indicates that the main issue was an expired certificate in the software versions installed with these customers. A complete and comprehensive root cause analysis is still in progress. Our focus is now on solving the immediate issues.

During the course of December 6, most of the affected customers’ network services have been successfully restored. We are working closely with the remaining customers that are still experiencing issues.

Background. An Ericsson equipment fault has been blamed on a mobile network outage spanning multiple countries that left millions without coverage, with some still affected on December 6, 2018.

The outage  affected data access across the mobile services of operators including SoftBank in Japan and O2 in the UK.

SoftBank has reported that its outage lasted nearly five hours starting at around 1:39pm local time, and affected its SoftBank and Y!mobile branded LTE services, as well as its SoftBank Air wireless broadband and Ouchi-No-Denwa fixed line services. –  CT Bureau