In Russia, there was a massive failure in the work of the cellular operator Megafon. Users from Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Penza, Saratov, Samara, Ryazan, Ufa and other Russian cities reported that it was impossible to make a call - the network was unavailable.

First in official twitter the company was advised to set the network type to “3G only” and reboot the phone, and now a standard response is sent to all affected customers: “Currently, there are massive communication difficulties. We're already fixing it. We apologize for any inconvenience caused". The company added that it does not have data on the specific time frame for fixing the problem.

Unsuccessful call

Photo report: Failure in "Megafon" turned into memes

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MegaFon said that dial-up success in Moscow and several other cities has dropped by 30%, noting that calls are still possible using instant messengers. Unfortunately, this did not satisfy many of the company's customers who cannot use instant messengers without access to Wi-Fi.

According to the press service of Megafon in its Telegram channel, the cause of the failure was an accident on one of the elements of network equipment.

In addition, one of the company's offices also said that they had an accident, but the timing of the elimination of the consequences is still unknown. Employees who wish to receive compensation are offered to write an application at the company's office. When asked about the reasons for the failure, it is reported that a hacker attack is not ruled out.

Some time after reports of Megafon failures, information appeared in the media that other mobile operators, such as Beeline, also encountered communication problems. In a conversation with Gazeta.Ru, company spokeswoman Anna Aibasheva said that the network was operating normally without massive failures, and the spread of a false report about problems with the operator’s network was due to a response from a technical support employee about the work of one base station companies.

O stable work"Gazeta.Ru" was also informed by MTS press secretary Dmitry Solodovnikov: "MTS network is operating normally."

But Yota, which works on MegaFon's networks, really ran into difficulties. Company representative Inna Zhideleva told Gazeta.Ru that some Yota customers in several regions, including Moscow, are experiencing problems using mobile communications. “Technicians are already carrying out restoration work. In the near future, the problem will be completely resolved,” the company’s PR manager said.

Haven't been able to come to their senses

"MegaFon" became one of the victims of large-scale hacker attack WannaCry virus on May 12th. This fact was confirmed to Gazeta.Ru by the director of public relations of the company Petr Lidov.

AT telephone conversation With a correspondent, Lidov said that on the day of the attack, many MegaFon office computers began to reboot and issue a message demanding a ransom for decrypting the data, and not only Moscow, but also other Russian cities suffered.

Fortunately, the spread of the attack was slowed down, and just a couple of hours later, the operation of the entire MegaFon call center was restored so that subscribers could communicate with the support service. A company representative stressed that the WannaCry virus did not affect communication services in any way, and the personal data of the operator's customers remained safe.

In January 2017, Megafon users also complained about the unavailability of some services - Multifon, MegafonTV, as well as website malfunctions. The company explained the failure as an accident in the data processing center (DPC), caused by abnormal frosts in the region.

After some time, the services started working normally. Then the representative mobile operator Yulia Dorokhina told Gazeta.Ru that the order in the system is measured not by the presence of failures, but by the ability to quickly eliminate them. “This was done by the company's specialists in as soon as possible. And at night on a holiday, ”added Dorokhin.

All residents of Russia know firsthand that Russian mobile operators like to write off money from subscriber accounts under strange pretexts, to sell unnecessary paid services, mislead and in every possible way cash in on their subscribers. Today it became known that mobile operator MegaFon, which is in good standing with many, cruelly scams all its subscribers for money, and it does this, of course, covertly.

This story was told by a user with the nickname InGrib on the Yaplakal forum, but it is absolutely reliable and confirmed by screenshots. It all started with the fact that one of the residents of Russia did not use his number for several months, after which he was automatically blocked - this is the usual normal procedure. Since this number was important for the subscriber of the MegaFon operator, he went to the operator's salon to restore it.

When restoring the number, you need to replenish it by 200 rubles, as well as choose any of the new and available tariff plans for connection. In order not to pay a single ruble, the Russian opted for the Go to Zero tariff plan, which has no subscription fee at all. As a result, the restoration of the number cost only 200 rubles, but after entering Personal Area On the official website it turned out quite different.

As it turned out, the MegaFon mobile operator quietly connected four unnecessary paid services to the free tariff plan, for which you don’t have to pay a single penny, including “Change the dial tone” (93 rubles per month) and “Who called +” (37 , 2 rubles per month). At the same time, the rest of the services seem to be free, but if you read their description carefully, you will notice that they will become paid after some time, when the “trial period” starts.

So, for example, the “SMS XXS” service is free for the first 10 days, but then it costs 3.5 rubles a day, that is, 105 rubles a month. The Internet XS service looks no less interesting, since initially it costs 190 rubles, but from the second month this amount increases to 210 rubles per month. Moreover, in the personal account of MegaFon, it is displayed in the section "Without subscription fee', as if on purpose.

As a result, if the buyer of the tariff plan from the MegaFon operator does not enter his personal account immediately after connection, that is, in the first days, he may lose a large amount of money, which he will find out after some time. So free tariff plan"Go to zero" without a subscription fee directly "out of the box" costs 450 rubles per month.

Of course, who cares, but in our humble opinion, the MegaFon operator cruelly cheats all its subscribers for money, connecting them with absolutely unnecessary and useless services, and the client is not even warned about this. It’s good if you come across an advanced subscriber who immediately goes into your personal account and turns them off, but what about the elderly and those who are not at all friendly with electronics? Paying 450 rubles a month for a tariff without a monthly fee?

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Not so long ago, a global failure occurred in the entire network system, which took a long time to fix the problems. However, subscribers often experience difficulties in which Megafon does not work today in 2019. In specific cases, there may be no Internet access, loss of connection with all subscribers (including other operators), the inability to use various services and much more. It is possible to solve the problem on your own only in cases where its appearance depended on the subscriber himself. In other situations, specialist advice is required.

If the subscriber detects any problems in the network, there are probably several different reasons, depending on what kind of failures occurred and in which category of communication. Conventionally, they can be divided into the following groups:

1. calls. In this case, it is possible for the user to be outside the network access area, that is, in areas where there is no operator coverage. Technical failures of the device or the company itself are also likely.
2. Internet. There is also likely to be a lack of coverage, service congestion, or internal problems with the global network.
3. SMS. The instant messaging service may also fail. Often they are associated with internal problems of the system, the absence of messages in the package (applies to tariffs with subscription fee), as well as funds on the balance sheet.

AT individual cases there may be difficulties with the use of specialized services of the company (television, official app and etc.). It is possible to solve Megafon communication problems today 2019 independently (in the settings) or with the help of company representatives in person or by calling the contact center.

Communication problems Megafon today

A lack of connection or poor quality is often likely due to problems with the network itself. In such cases, two reasons are most likely:

• carrying out preventive work (temporary, as a rule, these works are notified in advance);
• server infection computer virus(has happened a few times in practice).

Communication problems are rare these days. Sometimes during the holidays (in particular, New Year's), they are caused by excessive network congestion. But the problem is also temporary and does not require a mandatory solution.

No connection Megafon today

A complete lack of communication may indicate probable problems:

1. Being out of range. Often problems occur when traveling in another region. To avoid them, it is recommended to find out in advance information about the availability of coverage.
2. Internal breakdown of the phone. As a rule, this concerns damage to the SIM card slot, modem or antenna.
3. Breakdown of access points. In such cases, the tower that provides communication in a particular area probably does not work. Verify this information possibly by calling or submitting an online application to the customer support center.

You should also find out information about possible breakdowns or preventive maintenance in the customer support center. However, in such cases, you should be prepared for the fact that network congestion and employment will not allow you to quickly find out what is happening with Megafon's connection today.

What are the problems with Megafon today

The company provides classic services, as well as high-speed Internet throughout Russia. Every year the coverage areas in the regions are growing, and the organization itself is developing and improving the services provided. However, until now, far from all cities have an LTE connection, and some do not have towers - access points. Decide this problem possibly by user request. In other cases, 2G and 3G connections are usually connected, which function almost everywhere. If they are not connected either, it is necessary to check the serviceability of the operated device and its antenna. You should also pay attention to the connection indicator, which shows the distance of the nearest tower from the subscriber.

There is another problem, also associated with the presence of towers. It consists in the frequent congestion of the network, which does not allow it to be fully used. In such cases, coverage extension is also required.

Communication is bad - what to do?

First of all, if Megafon does not work, it is necessary to find out the nature of the malfunctions. Often, the company notifies about possible failures on the official pages in in social networks as well as via SMS. You can also call the phone hotline to clarify this issue.

If the reasons are not in connection failures, it is recommended to carry out the following operations with the phone:

• reboot the device;
• pull out the SIM card and reinsert it into the slot;
• move the SIM card to another device (thus, it is possible to find out the possible presence of a breakdown in the phone);
• set up the network manually (select the operator and connection type: 2G, 3G or 4G).

As a rule, at least one of the proposed methods works.

Why 3G and 4G Megafon does not work

Separate access towers are responsible for the 3G and LTE (4G) network. And if Megafon does not work today when using this particular coating, two reasons for the phenomenon are most likely (in addition to a malfunction of the equipment):

1. the absence of a subscriber in the coverage area;
2. malfunctions in the operation of towers.

If previously it was possible to use services on the territory successfully, most likely the reason is a technical failure of the coverage. In this case, information about the malfunction should be reported to the contact center or chat with a specialist.

SMS does not work on Megafon: what to do?

First of all, you need to check the status of the balance or the presence of SMS in the purchased message package (if any). If there are no resources in both cases, the message will fail to be sent. To resume their use, you will need to replenish your account or purchase an additional package of services.

Other possible reasons include:

• Incorrect entry of the SMS center number. It is necessary to check the correctness of the recorded number and the presence of +7 or 8 at its beginning (the number must be 11-digit).
• A ban on sending instant messages is connected. To deactivate the service, dial *330*111# .
• Phone limitations or problems. In this case, you should check the SIM card on another phone, or restart yours.

If the connection still does not work in terms of sending SMS Megafon today, it is recommended to contact the support service. It is available on the hotline number, technical support, as well as in the online chat on the company's website.

conclusions

Despite the constant expansion of network capabilities, communication problems continue to appear and repeat for most mobile operator subscribers. But not always the cause of the problem lies in the incorrect operation of the services, and often the prerequisites for this are technical failures of the user's device, a zero balance, or the subscriber being outside the coverage area. In all cases, it is possible to solve the problem of restoring a high-quality connection, but for this it is necessary to correctly establish the cause of its deterioration.

Today, millions of people have faced the consequences of a technological accident. There was a serious malfunction in the work of one of the Big Three operators.

Subscribers of MegaFon in Moscow and the region, in Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Ryazan and other cities of the center of Russia suffered. People were not just left without communication - banking services, taxi and delivery services worked intermittently. MegaFon has millions of subscribers in the capital region alone, which makes it possible to judge the scale of the problem.

That's what in modern world may turn off cellular communication: no calls, no SMS, no pictures in social networks.

Rolling blackouts began at about 11 Moscow time. And at first, judging by the messages on the forums on the Internet, it seemed that the network disappeared at once for all major telecom operators. It soon became clear that the blow fell only on the clients of MegaFon and Yota. Does not catch in the center of Moscow. Without communication, all of Central Russia, the Volga region. The outage affected five million SIM cards almost overnight.

Lucky for those who have the Internet - instant messengers work, but calls are only emergency. However, it is far from the first attempt to get through to the call center of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. Those who have “no network” on the screen today had to rely on the city landline phone and good luck.

Taxi drivers were left without work - now, after all, all orders with the help of mobile internet. Customers could not get through to beauty salons, for example. Daily earnings were at risk.

Left without communication, the owners of MegaFon's SIM cards began to call the call center, but it turned out that the lines were overloaded. The most impatient ones, whose entire business is built on calls, changed their telecom operator in the afternoon. Who could wait - they stormed the offices of Megafon. All, of course, with the same questions - when they return the connection, how to call until then.

“It so happened that I was the only one who had Megafon working all day, and the Internet and calls worked without problems. I just gave my phone to those subscribers who urgently needed to make calls, because many were in a critical situation,” says Polina Solovieva.

At the headquarters of the operator, at first they kept silence, on the page on the social network they unsubscribed about a 30 percent drop in communication. But after a cloud of comments with the righteous anger of customers, MegaFon had to announce a massive collapse. Already in the evening, in the capital's office of the operator, they officially commented on the disappearance of communication. It turns out that the underlying software is broken.

“This is the most serious accident in the history of the company in terms of network impact. The failure occurred in software. It erroneously gives out the peak load itself, which is constant, which, in fact, the network cannot withstand, ”said Petr Lidov, director of public relations at Megafon.

They say that American equipment suppliers have woken up and are already connected to the repair. Megafon promises to restore the network in the next few hours. Well, as for the version that there is no connection due to the consequences of a hacker attack on the operator - Megafon, after all, suffered from a week ago WannaCry virus, at headquarters they say that the ransomware Trojan is not to blame.

Today, all specialized sites and my feeds are full of links to this material. I think that since it is widely distributed on the net, it will not disappear, but nevertheless I will keep it here for memory. Written emotionally, chaotically (I kept the original text without any edits, fortunately there is nothing completely unprintable there), but, of course, this text has its own truth of life. Yes, a person looks at everything from his own bell tower, from the bell tower of the "former", but apparently there is resentment. I will not give my vision of the situation in Megafon, because we must start from the very legendary times of the North-West GSM, but I will make only one remark. There is a culture of "company management" (with which we are far from all right), but there is also an "ownership culture". It is clear that cellular communication has entered saturation, this is a normal phenomenon that all industries go through, no one grows extensively forever. But then, confused in the absence of clear and, most importantly, quick-resulting goals, cellular companies went into a frenzy (I will not delve into the topic). Here, the shareholders would be sensible to assess both the potential and the opportunities, but... but instead they want "eternal growth." I occasionally communicate with the shareholders of telecom companies, they, of course, are overwhelmed by analysts and consultants, and they love to give examples from the IT field, there are 70 people working in WhatsApp, and the company is worth 12 billion. But these are examples taken out of context, it’s another matter that the examples are already very tempting, in addition, people who have shown the initiative once (and often more than once) simply cannot calm down and "rest on their laurels." It is at such and such moments that the "culture of ownership" manifests itself, but you need to understand what you can demand from companies, that is, from their management. At the same time, without achieving any significant success on new fronts, a powerful "optimization" begins to show how efficiency is increasing on the other hand. There are risky initiatives, but there are bad ones. And how to distinguish? This is what skill is, this is culture. Unfortunately, this is not only our misfortune and problem. I have the opportunity to communicate with foreign colleagues, the same problems, someone on a larger scale, someone on a smaller scale. What this leads to, in the text, is another matter that the text gives a very narrow view of the problem.

As many already know, last Friday, May 19, MegaFon had 3 branches without communication. Volga region, Central branch and Moscow region. The accident is unprecedented for the company, and the consequences of its MF will be dealt with for a long time. Further, my view as a former employee (engineer / IT specialist) on why this could happen. Or, more simply, how my favorite company was brought down.

Everything written below is purely my IMHO, it can be completely subjective, I can omit something, but since I stewed in all this mess for a very long time, memories and feelings are still fresh. This is my first and last post, you have the right to copy the text, distribute, quote and do whatever you want with it. I won’t go into this account anymore, because I don’t believe in decency and freedom of speech. There is only one goal, to raise at least a little hype.

I worked at MegaFon for many years. With enthusiasm, a lot of revisions, let's say with faith that I am doing something significant, that the future is ours... And the company really grew, its coverage grew, becoming the best. The professionalism of the team grew, the team grew stronger, the salary grew.

The first suspicions, my colleagues and I began to arise in 2012-13. When we suddenly found out that we are working on an outdated model. In those years, Mr. Tavrin was just forming a team, but he already promised big changes. Federalization, optimization, cost reduction and other pleasant words for an MBA graduate. It is now possible to end the story on this, but then it was not so frightening. It would seem, who in their right mind would shake the infrastructure, working, debugged over the years? After all, they usually don’t save on engineers / IT specialists ... But this is exactly what our top did in the first place.

Plans were announced to optimize costs, and tadams, it was our technical staff that turned out to be the most unoptimized. The plans were grandiose, the federalization of all monitoring systems, the unification of operation in highly qualified centers in St. Petersburg and Samara, the introduction of AI, and unified systems accounting / processing of accidents and tasks for the whole country. But as always there was a small but, it was necessary to cut half of the technical staff from the old teams. And for the second, allocate a quota with a demotion. Guess who left?

Almost everyone who stood at the origins of the infrastructure in the branches left, exploitation in the regions was especially hard, few agreed to the downgrade. There were young people without work experience and those who managed to keep their positions. It was intended to compensate United Centers Network Management (ECCC), in which they wanted to gather professionals. And turn their work into streaming with a narrower specialization. The idea was that a group of professionals serves several branches of the company at once. That is, if earlier the entire Volga region was exploited for 200 hours (conditionally), now they should have been 20 (conditionally), in St. Petersburg. And those 20 (conditionally) unfortunates who remained in the branch were supposed to help them. Should have helped with this. new monitoring, but it was turned from powerful departments, on which the network was kept before (I believe that it is the most stable in the Russian Federation), into a department of doodles that are not responsible for anything at all. And the most important function of the old monitoring - the coordination of the work of other departments ... was simply removed. If before it was a group of young guys that zadolbyvali everyone around until even the most minor problems are eliminated. That new feature monitoring has become sick! the transfer of the emergency to those 20 unfortunates from the branch and 20 from the ECUS, who are now responsible for the entire part. And then only the most critical ones, the rest of the staff had to search for it themselves, using the web platform created for this. Is it necessary to say that all this turned into an endless series of mistakes, accidents and mutual hatred? And to this day it works through one place. And to improve statistics, and beautiful performance reports, the accident criteria have been revised. What used to be a fucking star suddenly became a minor incident. In some categories, the allowable degradations were generally increased by more than four times. What can I say, many types of errors on the equipment were no longer processed at all, since they allegedly became insignificant.

That's when I really started to feel the pressure of everyone knowing where you work. Complaints poured in, comments from friends, jokes about "the megaphone does not catch." And the company happily reported on the portal about how everything works wonderfully and smoothly. It would seem that you can live? But that was only the beginning.

Since 2014, so many different bureaucratic systems have been introduced... Endless forms, applications, web services, accounting systems. I was still tolerable, but guess who suffered the most? Engineers, Technicians, IT people. Those who were responsible in principle for the most important, our leadership systematically turned into typical officials. Nothing should happen without filling out the appropriate forms and reports, such has become the slogan. Which one then The best way do turn it into a bureaucrat? Put him in the swamp of bureaucracy and pay less money. The ECSCs could not cope with the work and demanded new quotas for the staff, our management, in turn, added more control systems for infrastructure personnel to analyze the possibility of further reductions in the branches. From close-knit teams, the infrastructure in the regions turned into heroes of the series Lost, who were just trying to survive. From well-coordinated teamwork, everything turned into some kind of dragging the blanket over oneself. In response, the ECSCs began to close the work on themselves, and in the end they stopped informing the rest of what they were doing altogether. Salaries stopped growing from the word at all, and remained at the level of 2013. Career growth, in principle, disappeared as a species. Professional development and training is dead.

As a result, by the time I left at the end of 2016, the infrastructure in the regions had become extremely deplorable. My work (and my colleagues too) has turned into some kind of endless struggle with the system. ECUS who do not have in order to perform their work qualitatively, but only speed. Colleagues from other departments who are trembling for their seats, and simply hiding behind a wall of bureaucracy erected by the company. Linear and senior management who are afraid to tell the truth, and only silently perform. All this under the sauce of complete mismatch, mutual distrust, and simply resentment towards the leadership and what is happening. It got to the point that scoring on everything except direct orders became the most popular way of working in the company. Simply because business processes began to be built that way. Everything has turned into such a swamp that even on corporate system applications, an application for help in finding the right application form appeared ... And all this against the backdrop of a growing number of complaints about communications and total absence understanding (and indeed the desire to know) at the tops what is happening below. And most importantly, everyone understood that sooner or later it would lead to collapse.

It is important to note that MegaFon is a very large company, and all the consequences in it do not occur immediately, but by inertia after a rather long period of time. Therefore, the collapse of infrastructure did not really affect immediately. It so happened that the consequences covered the company just now.

After reading all of the above, you probably already have your hair on end, but no, this is only a small part of the problems. The following should be added to the already written wall of text. The accident happened because:

Firstly, the broken equipment was lobbied by the director of development (technical development of the network, who is now the director of infrastructure sick!), with the formation of a marketer ... Someone asked the techies why they want a telecom vendor, and not HP? No.

Secondly, how many people have been trained to operate this equipment? A handful. And then they cut it, which I wrote about. And until 2017, in general, everyone except Moscow and the ECUS went with any beard training.

Thirdly, federalization touched everything. So three branches were closed by 2 nodes. It looks especially fresh and innovative against the backdrop of past years, when we reserved everything we could and more than once. By distributing equipment geographically to each region of the branch, up to several data centers per city.

Finally, fourthly, this is the complete burnout of those personnel. It's a terrible pressure on those who are left when people feel that nothing good awaits them ahead. Needless to say, my most optimistic colleagues have even begun to admit that the company is falling apart. What can I say, this year, due to the fact that MegaFon did not fulfill its profit plan, it was decided to give engineers / IT employees an annual bonus equal to half the salary. Those people who conscientiously fulfilled their goals all year, got up at night to eliminate accidents, and labored on weekends. Simply because the company did not receive any profit. Can someone say that they say they didn’t receive it because the accidents were poorly executed? By the standards of the past, yes, but by the current standards, it's excellent. With what enthusiasm and responsibility does the average engineer now relate to his work? But I'm not even raising the issue of one of the lowest salaries in telecom.

And the other day, Mr. Soldatenkov (Director of MegaFon), made an appeal to the employees, hinting how bad they were that they allowed this. Former colleagues sent me, and I was bombed. So everyone already don't give a shit, don't give a shit about the network, don't give a shit about the connection, don't give a shit corporate values. The predecessor of the current gender ruined most of what worked great, and made everything that was left to work as difficult as possible. The current one has deprived people of financial motivation, so do not be surprised by what is happening. WannaCry, both HLR cases are mostly the result of a breakdown in what is happening in the most important part of the company.

There is so much more to write, but what's the point? I left, now I work for a much smaller company. Is it better than the current MF? Much. I no longer need to convince my subordinates to cut into shit-kukuevo on the weekend for just one thank you from me. Or to convince a colleague that we simply cannot raise salaries without changing positions ... And for those pennies that he receives, he must also try. What about the rest? I think they will leave sooner or later, the young people who were recruited in 2014 for lower positions have already gained enough experience and will now go to new companies. What about MegaFon? MegaFon will still be in agony for a long time, if suddenly someone from above does not take away the boobs of consulting agencies ... and at least not for a long time begins to see the light.

Probably so not only in MegaFon, but I don’t know about others. And there will be many more accidents, and with even greater consequences. Because a runner who saves on his legs ... a runner is not for long.