Econet is facing unprecedented challenges on its network, to say the least. They resolved the voice services issue but data connectivity issues persist as we discussed here: 8 days later, Econet data connectivity challenges persist – a timeline of their comms on the issue.
In those messages, we got acknowledgements that there really is a problem and that it was not our phones. We understood that they are “currently experiencing intermittent system challenges.” However, the question remained, what really caused all this?
We got some sources within the organisation telling us the company was under attack, that they had been ‘hacked,’ so to speak. So, we reached out to Econet to comment on that.
Econet categorically (I love that word) denied that. There has been no hack. Instead, they told us what caused the network failure.
The outage was caused by multiple power failures at our NOC [network operations centre]. There was no hacking or anything of that sort that happened.
This is not the first time that Econet has faced power failures at its network operations centres. One incident that comes to mind was a few years ago when they put out the following statement,
Our engineers are busy working to resolve a network fault that started when generators at our Network Operations Centre failed to kickoff following a ZESA power outage.
The problem has since been isolated and our technical teams are working flat out to resolve the issue.
We sincerely regret the inconvenience this has caused to our customers.
That time, they resolved the issue within a day and yet this time around, 8 days in, they still haven’t managed to resolve the faults fully.
The operative word is ‘multiple’ when trying to understand why it has taken this long this time around.
Econet will be releasing a comprehensive statement on what happened soon. We will keep our eyes peeled for that. Hopefully, we will find out exactly what happened then.
What’s your take?