O2 users suffer data service outage

O2's network has been hit by problems

O2 users in the UK have suffered a major service outage over the past couple of days that may have left thousands of iPhone and other smartphone users without access to data services.

At the time of writing the mobile network giant still had not released an official statement or status update on its web site or official blog, but it has been giving regular updates via its Twitter feed.

A quick glance at this over the past two days indicates that the problems seem to have begun on Sunday, when the firm said: "We're sorry that some mobile customers have had problems with data today - these services will be back up tonight."

However, O2 was unable to do so and later wrote: "We apologise to customers who cannot use data at the moment. We have a fault with the allocation of IP addresses which we are fixing."

Finally, late yesterday evening, O2 announced via its Twitter feed: "Quick data services update: the system fault has been fixed and internet connections are gradually being restored."

However, the firm added that MMS and Visual Voicemail remain affected. " We're working on these as a priority," the tweet read.

This is not the first time O2 users have suffered from service outages. In July, users encountered an almost identical problem of not being able to gain internet access or MMS capabilities after a fault with the allocation of IP addresses.