Ericsson Issues Apology for Global Mobile Service Outage, Citing Expired Software Certificate as Root Cause

Börje Ekholm, Ericsson’s President and CEO, issued a formal apology to customers and their end‑users following a widespread service disruption that occurred on Thursday, December 6, 2018.

The outage, which affected mobile data and select voice services for users of O2 UK and SoftBank in Japan, was traced to a software flaw in Ericsson’s core‑network components.

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“During December 6, Ericsson identified an issue in certain core‑network nodes that caused temporary disturbances for a limited number of customers across multiple countries, involving two specific versions of the SGSN–MME (Serving GPRS Support Node – Mobility Management Entity),” the company stated.

“The faulty software is now being decommissioned. We apologise not only to our customers but also to their customers, and we are working diligently to limit the impact and restore services as quickly as possible,” added Ekholm.

An initial root‑cause analysis points to an expired certificate in the affected software versions. A comprehensive investigation is underway, with immediate remedial action in progress.

Most customers’ services have since been restored, while Ericsson continues to collaborate closely with those still experiencing issues.