Johannesburg - Mobile operator Vodacom Group [JSE:VOD] said late on Thursday that subscribers affected by a network outage "should now see their service being restored," following an overall degradation of service for most of the afternoon.
Shortly after midday, the group apologised via Twitter that "certain customers" were having difficulties calling or SMSing on its network.
The group tweeted: "We're aware that certain customers are experiencing an inability to call or SMS. Sincere apologies, we're working on a fix."
It also used the social networking platform to deny that its network outage was related to the Regulation of Interception of Communication Act (RICA) deadline later today.
"The engineers are still working on the network outage - apologies to everyone affected. Just to confirm, this is not related to RICA," it said.
The group said the cause of the outage, which affected subscribers in selected spots across the country, was a multiple failure of transmission system equipment. This transmission system, it added, provided the connectivity to support the wireless network. The transmission failure, which occurred late this morning, had a knock-on effect on other areas of the network. This resulted in an overall degradation of service, Vodacom said.
On Wednesday, the group had confirmed that it was having trouble with its network.
"We can confirm that a small percentage of our customers have experienced a delay in using our USSD recharge system. The airtime has been credited but in some cases it is not yet reflecting on the individual's balance. We would like to apologise to any affected customers and assure them that their recharge will be visible on their account shortly," Richard Boorman, Vodacom's executive head of media relations told I-Net Bridge.