Reportedly, Mobilink network is offline in North region at least, due to an infrastructure outage in company’s main network hub in Islamabad.
All Mobilink numbers in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and other cities in North region are showing no activity (SMS/Calls/GPRS), at any level.
Twitter feeds are claiming that Mobilink’s MSC 5 in Islamabad caught fire today evening, however, we couldn’t confirm this from Mobilink – as their numbers are not responding.
http://twitter.com/search?q=mobilink fire
It merits mentioning here that Mobilink lost its NOC in Islamabad, just recently when fire erupted in the building on one Sunday. This would be second time that Mobilink’s office has caught fire, that too on Sunday.
Just to let you know, all MSCs, Offices, BTSes, and other telco buildings are always insured.
We will update this post as we get more information on this.
Update:
We are told that DSL services from Link Dot Net are down in North region as well.
Update:
We can confirm the fire incident at one of Mobilink’s office in Islamabad, which is said to be the main hub or technically called main switching center of Mobilink.
No human loss reported so far, apparently due to Sunday’s holiday. Staff available on site told ProPakistani that complete restoration of network can take from 12 to 48 hours at least.
This major damage in Islamabad’s MSC, has impacted Mobilink’s network through out the country.
Update:
Mobilink’s Network is (partially) back, and so is Link Dot Net.
Update:
- Mobilink is Getting Back Online, Partially at least [Official Update]
- Mobilink Gives its Subscribers a Quiet Sunday [Opinion]
Accidents happen everywhere!
I am not getting mobilink network in karachi as well.
why always mobilink?
I love it when you pinpoint the actual. What I measure from your article is that the technical structure that Mobilink has is getting old and since getting new structure is very costly, it is better to get rid of it “naturally” and get new structrue from the money that they get from insurance. Very clever.
I just pry that were no human casulaties.
Wrong!. There was “NEW” equipment in the site with “OLD”. unfortunately for YOU no equipment was damaged. All old equipment is now working :), insurance claims do not cover airtime losses and subscriber perception. Most of the “OLD” equipment is bought by most african operators in parts or as whole. So no, your claim is incorrect and not very clever!
I am in Ghakkhar (District Gujranwala) this time, service is disturb here as well.
Geo news reported about Mobilink fire incident, company officials said that the system will be soon restored. Lets see how soon :)
no signals from past 6 hrs in peshawar
I do not know about the Islamabad or the north region but I can confirm that from 3pm it is not working in Karachi. I have travelled to DHA and Clifton. Met with family members and others too but not a single mobile is working.
Just went to the MSC. There were fire brigades there. They didnt let people go in there. Everyone was outside. Multiple sources said the fire was due to some UPS Batteries.
I am getting no network access error upon manualy selecting the network and ofcours no signal no network in peshawar,i thot at 1st i got problem with my sim but then came 2 know abt the problem.
This problem will remain in next few days also. Because the Media Gateway site in isalamabad I-10 Sector is burning on fire due to unknown reason. Now they are trying to switch the network load on other Media Gate Way. But this will f*** the network too badly in Islamabad/RawalPindi.
Mobilink is not a preferred service among consumers now. People do not like mobilink
mobilink is not a reliable network. why always problems occurred in mobilink?
I am in karachi and I my mobilink number is not working since morning, whats the problem in karachi??
Mobilink network is down all over Pakistan now.
http://www.pak-sms.com/mobilink-goes-down-thoughout-pakistan-2079
God bless mobilink
some “indigos” are working fine here in KHI, but 99% of my mobi contacts are hanging..
they are RESHAPING COMMUNICATION starting from Piegon.. :)
Yes also in quetta mobilink service down
Thro mobilink to garbage use WARID Life Da Network!!
I have been really frustrated from mobilink service now, it’s heck!
what happend was that during batteries replacement in DC room, a rack fell and fire broke our due to short circuit, well in short i dont thin it will take 2-3 days to bring system backonline, may be basic system but it will take much more longer. above all they dont have any dr site infact no telco has any DR site in pak :), just sms and calls other than corporate accounts is causing moilink approx 90 lac an hour
What’s DR?
I think Disaster Recovery……… i am not sure but as an IT professional i guessed it.
Yes it stands for “Disaster Recovery” site, which is actually Back-up or redundant site & it should take over functionality automatically within seconds in case of any disaster at Primary site. DR site should be located at geographicaly separate place from Primary site to avoid any common disaster at both sites. However both sites should be synchronized to each other.
yes, you got it right. DR stands for disaster recovery.
@Khanman: Telenor is the 1st Telco and it is in the process of developing a DR site, near LHR :)
telenor also has a replicating site near charsadda .. telenor has a replicating and DR site for everything
All telcos has DR sites but they never test it ever :P
just north is down, from kharian to attock in punjab and whole nwfp
it wasnt available in multan too!
Mobilink sucks yar….. ye bbhi koi bat hai…..
All the 3 fires broke on sunday, is it a co-incidence ? whats the inside story, and insurance money doesn’t stand true as they are making more money an hour than the insurance claims.
Mobilink is now used mostly in rural areas, isn’t it?
I am travelling on motorway from islamabad to lahore, one of my friends travelling with me is using mobilink. Service was down till bhera. Its working after that.
Mobilink network restored :)
What the hell all you mobilnk customers ,change your network …………….
another fire :| again on Sunday…whatever the case it is surely not good for the customers…and then the company!
NO SIGNAL IN KARACHI
All Mobilink customers port to Telenor Pakistan’s Largest Cellular Network with Edge/GPRS. Mobilink is now bad network in Pakistan. Its time that u all port to Telenor.Because Telenor Pakistan has the new and latest Network and in 2011 Telenor’s go 3G.
Warid id the best operator
You deduce that from one major outage? Do you get paid for the cheap marketting?
lol, rightly said by umar.
@christopher
okaaay! that is just sad how it looks so rehearsed…agreed with umar, it looks like u do get paid for doing marketing online for telenor.
Warid Post Paid Rocks
Yes. Technically speaking, Warid has the best, most reliable & most expensive Network of Pakistan. Only point of failure is its lack of fake advertisments like Ufone which has actually the cheapest network of miserable QoS.
BIG BIG Loss for Mobilink ….
No network coverage in Islamabad Rawalpindi…
I am looking future , Mobilink will be vanished
Telenor and Ufone are on top ov the market….
mobilink is not a reliable network. why always problems occurred in mobilink? Yes, future is Telenor and Ufone.
Mobilink will lose 10-20% customers……
:) You wish!
still it having problem
And i can’t understand why these people are so careless such a bigger company can’t care for their stuffs n thugs
Will Mobilink compensate us customers for breach in promise of connectivity? They get our signs on contract stating the promise of connectivity from us when we are getting thier SIM. I need advice from anyone knowledgeable of consumer rights in Pakistan.
Warid all the wayyy!
100 % agreed
No body can resist natural disasters. but mobilink should have had a DR site (Disaster recovery site).
Though mobilink might recover THEIR loss from vendor who was working on site where problem occured BUT Mobilink should also send an appology note to all its customers through MEDIA.
Afterall, mobilink is not that bad like people saying above.
This is just a place where people share comments BUT as you can see people started to do marketing here :D
Arrogance can some time lay you down.
Mobilink should learn from this and should give compensation to all the affectees
I have heard Mobilink own staff members cells are working…
Can anyone share the facts how many corporate and prepaid users affected because of this.
Its time to move away from Mobilink because they had no DR plan. Don’t know what there executives sitting there are doing…
Technically speaking, Warid has the best, most reliable & most expensive Network of Pakistan. Only point of failure is its lack of fake advertisments like Ufone which actually has the cheapest network & miserable QoS & which they successfully prove to be the best through advertisments.
P.S: I am not from Warid at all & have nothing to do with its advertisment as stated above by an errogant mobilink fan or whatever.
You should not believe whatever you hear in the paan-shop around the corner. All north network equipments were shut-down. There was no coverage even for EMPLOYEES. Had there been any way to choose between subscriber types all corporate customers would have been given the priority. Sadly this option was not present.
HAHA, I find it funny when i go through such comments. Dear MSC was burnt, it doesnt check wether its a number of some employee or a regular customer…
Well im using a postpaid corporate package from Mobilink and it so happens that my phone got back on track quite early in the day today. its just absurd to suggest that the employees would have it back online…with the whole norht region down, how can that possibly even happen?:S
Yes last day service was down and today i have get back the signals… Good services by mobilink….
In Kharian (Distt Gujrat) Jazz Network is down till now. 7 Mar 11 at 11:15AM
while the incident is rather unfortunate, i think we should cut the comapny a little slack here…they did manage to restore all service in a rather short while. Such accidents tend to happen. I myself was rather irritated by the happening but it could have happened to any one.
My Blackberry got out of service around 5 yeterday but now its working. Slight connectivity issues but data is working. I have been told that if you restart blackberry then service will be fine i did and it worked. so all those with blackberry try restarting the phone. maybe it will help you too.
Im glad its back on track…considering the loss, they did rather well in coping with it all…one would think its rather inappropriate pointing fingers as such..lets not forget others telcos have faced the same some time or the other…
Funny thing is that while the outage tv channels were still showing mobilink Jazba ads. Ideally all promotional ads should have been suspended and an explanatory announcement should have been made to avoid any further dis-satisfaction. Then again its just my opinion.
This is quite bad news, As per comments i wana tell the Ufone do have a Dr developed in PK for such events.
FYI ” I WANA TELL THE UFONE HAVE THE DR DEPLOYED ONLY FOR THE IT EQUIPMENT”, which however could not be made functional in last year fire incident:)
Its working now.
MOBILINK ROX….
We are sending different comments on this forum. Tell me one thing which company wants to lose its business. I think this is natural disasters and we should understand their position as well.
I agree with all of you that Mobilink should have proper back up plan and now they should improve their SOPs. Regarding compensation, i agree with you guys. Anyways now i am receiving mails on my blackberry…..
Company don’t wants but the only thing what company have done to achive its gools
I agree with you. The mail point is what lesson they learned after this incident. I think they should improve their internal procedure and proper back up.
Mobilink is truly May-be-link.
Such pathetic!
Such a big operator should have had a backup.
Downtime of more than an hour is not acceptable.
This will hurt Mobilink’s reputation as a reliable operator.
Agreed. Revisiting of procedures is in order.
Well accidents are bound to happen…ufone too suffered network outage a while back…what matters is that how quick they get it all back on track…get the network back up and THAT has been done pretty quick by mobilink…
The incidents happening on Sunday is not just a coincidence, this is due to the fact that most of the maintenence work is done on Sundays to be outside business hours.
yara kya backaawaas hy….em leaving mblink….lol i can’t text ma gf…aswelll hawwww…..:D
Consumer rights act is needed to grip these big joint corporates. PTA should fine Mobilink.
Consumer rights do not come into play when causes for disruption are un-intentional. Get a grip on your emotions, sleep over it and think about all of the employees who have been working to restore services for you.
Services Officially restored. It may take a few hours to normalize the situation.
I HATE MOBILINK!!!!
my indigo Services restored early in the morning. Thank God. :) i rcvd a text from different NOs, as follwos:
“Mobilink Shut Down its Services across Pakistan more than 19 Hours. Even their landline Nos were NOT responding. Mobilink did NOT apologize to their more than 20 million customers, even by sending a single apology SMS. Mobilink must compensate for their negligence. PTA Should also take Notice.”
You cannot expect them to clog the network with an SMS to everyone, when everything is already choked up. There is no negligence, its something that happened and there was no way of stopping it.
Service is restored now…. got this news from an internal source…. BlackBerry service are also working now…
Thanks to Mobilink Technical guys…. they did a good job….. disasters happen
While trying not too sound too biased, i would like to mention a few things:
1. Natural Disaster, could have happened to anyone, any company, This is the first Major outage in Mobilink’s History, Please cut them some slack,Remember all the days that you DID have the service and never noticed it around.
2. Not everything can have Redundancy, even geographical, There are many technical reasons for that, i’ll give you a small example, One Sim is registered on one server, you cannot have two servers registering it cuz it causes a conflict, while it is ensured that nothing happens to that server, incase of a disaster like this, there is nothing you can do but to restore it.
3. There’s so many issues that are faced everyday but are dealt with on daily basis, none of them are noticed by the general customer cuz there’s redundancy and procedures define to ensure service. If something is just powered off by a fire, you cannot do much.
4. All technical staff of Islamabad more than 200 employees have been here in the building trying to restore everything since sunday evening, none of them have gone home. There’s ash, there’s acidic fumes that are hurting our eyes and our throats, there’s water on the floor with electric cables and extensions running on them, i’ve seen national managers and even CTO working around dragging cables to turn equipment back up. I can assure you, what they have already gotten working is an achievement, I would like to see if any other network operator in Pakistan recover within 18 hours after an incident like this. None of you are actually here and seeing the condition of what the fire left us with.
So please bare with us, while we work to bring our network back online. I can assure you we are more concerned than you are. For you its just a phonecall/sms/facebook , for us its our careers.
True that! even the managers are there… no one is just sitting idly and doing nothing.
I agree with you guys. As per my knowledge the the avg. per day gross revenue of Mobilink is more than Rs.200 million and in my opinion there will be huge presure on Technical team.
Regarding PTA and Consumer protection, we can see the condition of PTCL (parant company of UFONE).
Well said. Our guys have been working for many hours to resolve the issue, while competitors are pulling cheap marketting stunts. Its time to wake up and appreciate the endless efforts.
Hamein apni AAG dikhani hay.
Such Jazba
Such Values
I love Telenor. No problems like this. :-)
First of all, i would like to send my condolences to Mobilink for the loss of damage that they incurred. Secondly am grateful to Allah, that no life was lost in the process.Thirdly, yes i was upset that the service was not working yesterday due to very obvious reasons, But Alhamdulilah, managed to get the service back in just a day! Its great to see how they restored their network back so quickly, inspite of a fire!
well its back and rocking like ever!! :D i dunno why, but even with this outage, i still love the comapny. Ufone tau har waqt hi band rehta hai aur telenor pe eid aanay ki dair hoti hai, network jam…iv tried all of them out there and i have to say, Mobilink actually works when u need it to. This being a disaster is an exceptional case which could have happened to any one. the point is, they work perfectly under normal running, something iv personally experienced no other telco do…
No doubt, it directly lead towards loss of consumer loyalty and downgrade reliance on mobilink networks.Since its a natural disaster(fire) so masses should relax and stay calm . Don’t you know mobilink was the first one bring up GSM services in Pakistan (1997),corporate social responsibility, innovator to shine the bucket of international telco. investment, and first to introduce BB servers in Pakistan. So, MOBILINK is the best***
All they need to do is to give Rs.100 and 100 sms credit to subscribers effected, so that consumers could forget the soar incident happened. :)
i think accidents like these are bound to happen. ye tou sab networks k saath hota rehta hai.. but hey Allah ka shukar hai no lives were lost in the accident.. btw ab tou Isb region mein services kaam ker rai hain.. and so in rest of the punjab right? mobilink, we are with you, just the way you’ve been around for us in all the hard times our country have faced.
Bravo, thats the spirit. totally agree !
yaar ye tou ajeeb baat hai k sab log criticize kerna shuru ho gaye hain… itni achi service hai mobilink ki aur aik accident ki wajha say ye hua hai aur sab log itnay ghussay mein aa gaye hain..
hum bhi sara saal Mobilink ko paisay dete rehtay hain, hum se ghalti ho to kya Mobilink muaf karta hy? Nahi! woh kehta hy k aap ne hum se contract kiya tha isliye hum paisay kaat rahay hain. Isliye hum kehte hain k Mobilink ne bhi hum se contract/wada kiya tha k har waqt connectivity milay gi aur aap k karobar-e-zindagi me khalal nahi aye ga. Hum wada khilafee ke talafee bazariya compensation maang rahay hain, appology se kaam nahi chalay ga.
Yaaaay!! my service is running great since yesterday evening in tru mobilink style:D im sure the rest will get theirs working fine soon too..
i agree with ahmed. mobilink did a great job by fixing the issue in no time..
I do not understand why no body cares about the consumers?
Got here, by just browsing web,
No problem now, If i leak this info…….
This problem happened as Mobilink was using Sealed Lead Acid Batteries, during replacement of such batteries, one of the battery fell-off and spilt it’s acid out on other batteries, creating a fire, which took the whole MSC down,
Mobilink sucks big time. There are many people who have complaints with it.
mobilink is first company in Pakistan that started to provide this facility
hum bhi sara saal Mobilink ko paisay dete rehtay hain, hum se ghalti ho
to kya Mobilink muaf karta hy? Nahi! woh kehta hy k aap ne hum se
contract kiya tha isliye hum paisay kaat rahay hain. Isliye hum kehte
hain k Mobilink ne bhi hum se contract/wada kiya tha k har waqt
connectivity milay gi aur aap k karobar-e-zindagi me khalal nahi aye ga.
Hum wada khilafee ke talafee bazariya compensation maang rahay hain,
appology se kaam nahi chalay ga.
Mobilink is also offline here in Multan since night i.e. May 22, 2016.