Eircell, the largest mobile phone service-provider in the State, had to issue another apology to customers yesterday after almost 10 per cent of them found they could not access its network.
According to Mr Fergal Kelly, director of products, the problem started at 11.30 a.m. in the course of some "capacity enhancement" work on the network. When customers moved between different areas of the network, an increasing number of their phones could not reconnect to it and were unable to make or receive calls.
At its height the problem affected 70,000-75,000 users, about 10 per cent of Eircell's customers.
"We have done this hundreds of times before and it has never presented a problem. It took us a while to realise what had happened and to fix it," Mr Kelly said.
The error that led to the problem was fixed at about 3.30 p.m., and Mr Kelly said normal service had been restored by 3.45 p.m.
The nature of the network, which is divided into eight "logical areas", three in Dublin and five throughout the State, means that the problem manifested itself in varying ways in different areas.
"You could have moved 100 metres and lost your connection in Dublin but driven from Kerry to Waterford and not been affected," Mr Kelly said.
He also stressed that yesterday's problem was "entirely unrelated" to an earlier failure caused by flooding and software problems, which resulted in large sections of the capital being without mobile or land-line phone services last month.
"It is very rare for us to have significant network problems like these. To have two such events is extraordinary and almost unheard of," he added.
The earlier failure led to protests from Dublin business groups, many of which sought reassurance that such an incident would not recur.
On both occasions the system of Eircell's rival, Esat Digifone, did not go down, but during November's failure many of Esat's customers experienced inability to make calls as capacity on the network reached 60,000 calls per hour.
Mr Kelly said the occurrence of two such major problems in less than a month did not indicate shortcomings on Eircell management's part.
"We identified the problem early on, the issue was just being sure. There are no issues in terms of network management."
Eircell offered apologies for the "significant inconvenience" caused to customers and their business, and Mr Kelly said that, although "we can never say never, the company would like to reassure them of the resilience and robustness of our network".