Dutch investigate KPN emergency service network outage

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AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Netherlands launched an inquiry on Tuesday into a nationwide network outage at telecoms company KPN that knocked out emergency service numbers for nearly four hours.

 

 

“If three fail-safes don’t work then something is seriously wrong,” Socialist Party lawmaker Ronald van Raak said.

 

“If there is such bungling at KPN then we should make sure that a different provider, a different telecommunications company can take it over, right?”

 

Grapperhaus agreed he would look at the possibility.

 

KPN was privatized in the 1990s but is still the country’s largest telecoms group, followed by subsidiaries of Vodafone and T-Mobile.

 

Two people died during an outage of the Dutch emergency services numbers in 2012 and then-Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten said measures had been taken to prevent a recurrence.

CEO TO LEAVE

The morning after the outage KPN announced that chief executive Maximo Ibarra will leave due to “family reasons” after a little over a year in the job, adding that the Colombian-Italian executive’s decision was not linked to the outage.

 

Ibarra will return to Italy where he will take charge of Comcast’s Sky Italia pay-television business, two sources close to the matter said..

 

“I regret the timing, but family reasons gave me no choice,” Ibarra said in a statement. “I will dedicate myself in the coming months to securing a seamless transfer to my successor.”

 

Ibarra will stay at KPN, whose shares traded 2.4% lower by 1105 GMT, until the end of September as it seeks a replacement.

 

KPN has sold its international activities and now only serves the Dutch market, selling bundles of telephone, internet and TV services to consumers and businesses.

 

KPN outage caused by 'software bug': report

 

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch telecom Royal KPN NV believes that a major outage of its network in the Netherlands was caused by a software bug, national broadcaster NOS said, citing the company.

 

The NOS report said KPN believes the bug was located in the part of its systems that routes calls to the correct location. The company could not immediately be reached to confirm the report.

 

Sources : Here & Here