Post Luxembourg blames 'technical incident' for network outage

POST Luxembourg has identified a "technical incident" as the preliminary cause of Wednesday's widespread network outage, which left customers unable to access emergency numbers 112 and 113. Company officials released further details during a press briefing at 11am on Thursday, ruling out both a cyberattack and human errors.

While the issues were first registered at 4.15pm on Wednesday, Post had assembled its crisis unit by 5pm.

Post CEO Claude Strasser went on to explain that the internet and the fixed and mobile communications networks are separate and, fundamentally, not interconnected. The only link between them is the software that manages both.

It was here that problems occurred, which had repercussions on both networks and ultimately led to the outage of both services at Post.

When the systems operating via 4G and 5G stopped working, the system automatically switched to 2G, allowing customers to connect via that channel. This worked briefly, which is why some customers were temporarily able to reconnect.

However, the 2G traffic was quickly saturated, as the system is not designed to handle such high volumes. This also explains why some people experienced delays in receiving the government alert notification.

The next step for Post is to analyse what exactly went wrong with the software and how the issue was triggered.

The last incident of this scale occurred in 2013, Post clarified.

Further explanations expected

Prime Minister Luc Frieden is scheduled to also address the outage at a press briefing at 2pm on Thursday.

Minister of the Economy Lex Delles provided additional context during a Thursday morning interview on Radio 100,7, explaining that Post's 5G network failure stemmed from a software issue affecting two primary servers. While the 2G network remained functional, it became overloaded, disrupting calls and other services.

Delles noted that Post teams monitored the situation overnight and have since restored all services. However, at the time of the interview he still cautioned that investigators had not yet ruled out a potential cyberattack as the root cause.

The outage significantly affected emergency communications, though healthcare providers adapted with minimal disruption. The Robert Schuman Hospital Group in Kirchberg maintained normal operations throughout the incident, while Esch-sur-Alzette's hospital reported no abnormal patient influx at its emergency department according to a spokesperson.

The Hëllef Doheem tele-alarm service for at-home care was also temporarily inoperative during the network failure.