BY AZMAT HAROON
DOHA: A technical glitch at Qatar Telecom (Qtel) caused a brief yet major disruption in the Internet services here yesterday.
The disruption, which began at around 7pm, according to Internet users, varied from slow connectivity to a complete failure to connect. The disruption lasted for about half-an-hour for some while many others said they faced problems for close to an hour.
Internet lines, especially with fiber, would just drop, an irritated Qtel Internet service user told this newspaper.
“Our TV at home, which is connected through Mozaic, was working fine, but the Internet was not,” a Qtel customer who gave his name briefly as Ahmed, said.
“Even in office, where we have 16 MBPS connection, the Internet was not working,” Ahmed said, adding that the problem lasted for almost two hours.
“I had to switch off the Wifi on my mobile phone because there was no Internet at home, and then switch on the mobile data plan to use Internet on my Samsung Galaxy 3. I then used my phone as a mobile hot spot for my other devices to have access to the Internet,” an expert said, asking not to be identified.
Some, however, could access social networking sites along with chat and messengers through their mobile phones.
Asked for comment, a Qtel official confirmed: “Qtel had a technical issue with the ISP (Internet Service Provider), and the impact varied for different customers.”
“Some customers faced slow Internet connection while it wasn’t working at all for others,” the official said in remarks to this newspaper, adding that Qtel managed to solve the problem in less than 30 minutes.
The technical team of the telecom service provider is currently looking into the issue to ensure that the glitch does not happen again.
Many people were particularly outraged when they could not get help from Qtel’s 111 hotline. “This was mainly because of the load on the server”, the official said.
“Because many people could not connect to the Internet, they began calling at the same time. There was heavy traffic at all centres for a short time,” she added.
Meanwhile, Qtel tried to calm down some of the enraged customers by responding to their queries on social networking sites.
“Some customers might face issues while using the Internet. We are working to fix it. Sorry for inconvenience,” a statement on these websites by Qtel said.
The Peninsula
