Tesco Resolves Nationwide Broadband Outage

Tesco has admitted that thousands of its broadband customers experienced a significant broadband outage across the UK, but says that the issue is now resolved.

It comes after the supermarket giant reported financial losses running into billion of pounds.

Service Outage

Tesco has been a broadband service provider for a number of years now, but in January this year, it was revealed that TalkTalk is in the process of acquiring Tesco’s broadband and landline customers for an undisclosed sum. It is also purchasing the video and audio streaming service Blinkbox from Tesco.

But from midday yesterday (BST), Tesco’s broadband customers experienced a nationwide outage that lasted until Wednesday morning. The supermarket reportedly confirmed that up to 10,000 of its 75,000 customers were without service across different areas of the UK.

“We’re aware that customers around the country are experiencing issues with bb service currently. We’re investigating and will update ASAP,” said Tesco on Twitter yesterday.

It later said that the “search for the issue is narrowing”.

And it seems that Tesco managed to resolve the problem overnight.

“We believe the outage to now be resolved. If you are still experiencing issues with your broadband, please restart your router,” Tweeted Tesco at 10am Wednesday.

There is no word on what caused the problem, but hinted in a statement that it was a network problem.

“We are liaising with our network partner [Vodafone] to get the issue resolved as quickly as possible and apologise to any customers affected for the inconvenience,” Tesco was quoted by the BBC as saying in a statement.

Tesco has reportedly experienced ten network failures this month alone, according to its Twitter feed. But the supermarket has pointed out that the Twitter feed is used to update customers on network issues, which can only affect a very small number of people.

High Ratings

“Our fault rate is in line with the industry and we have high customer satisfaction ratings,” a Tesco spokesperson told the BBC.

The outage comes at a tough time for Tesco, which today reported a pre-tax loss of £6.4bn for the year to the end of February. That compares to a pre-tax profit of £2.26bn in the previous year.

Late last year, Tesco announced that its customers would be able to enjoy free Wi-Fi whilst they shop in stores. It teamed up with BT to provide free Wi-Fi to 806 Tesco Extra and Superstores across the UK as well as 113 stores in the Republic of Ireland.

Are you acquainted with Wi-Fi ? Try our quiz!