UpdateWatchdog orders China Unicom to explain double failure

The city's communications watchdog has ordered China Unicom to submit reports explaining two failures of its system network in three days that left customers fuming.

Last night angry subscribers flooded the local Facebook page of the mainland telecoms giant, the world's third-largest mobile network operator, with many saying they had been unable to make or receive calls even though their phones indicated strong signal strength and internet connections were normal.

The complaints were made hours before an official message was posted at about 7.30pm, saying that some circuits had been overloaded with calls after the mobile network resumed operations from an earlier failure.

A customer at a Unicom store in Mong Kok, where staff were overwhelmed yesterday, said there had been no connections at all on Friday. "And the same for today. How do they calculate my business losses?" the customer said.

China Unicom said on Monday its network had returned to normal services, with the second failure lasting up to eight hours.

The mainland telecoms giant said on Facebook that its network had resumed normal operations around 12.30am after emergency repairs.

It said some users might need to restart their mobile phones or re-insert their SIM cards to reconnect.