O2 says iPhone 3G site crash due to "extremely high" demand "Urges" customers to get in line early on Friday

7 July 2008 12:18 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

O2 has informed us that the online shop crashed this morning due to "extremely high levels of demand," but that they are working to restore the service for those who want to pre-order their iPhone 3G.

Responding to our enquiries about the failure of the online order system, that was advertised by O2 in both an email and a text message to those who registered interest in the device, a spokesperson informed Pocket-lint:

"We have made a limited allocation of iPhone 3G stock available for pre-order online, primarily for those customers that pre-registered their interest."

"Due to extremely high levels of demand, the O2 online shop was temporarily unavailable this morning. We are working to restore the service back to full speed as quickly as possible."

"Customers who are unable to place an order online can still go into store from 8.02am on 11 July, although we urge people to get down there early as demand is expected to be very high."

"We will have significant supplies in store on the 11th but we expect demand to be very high so recommend people get in line early to be in with a chance of getting one. We will allocate stock on a first come, first served basis."

Comments

Great. Not.

Registered by email. Received email this morning. Logged on, site down. Logged in after 12h00, site running. No 16GB iPhones.

Is the demand really that high or are they hyping it so you turn up in person on the day... Posted by midger, UK / AZ
Absolute farce if you ask me.

Was looking to upgrade so registered by email back in June but never received any email. Received text though this morning to say i had to log on online to receive an upgrade.
First time round couldn't get anywhere.
After a couple of hours tried again and got to a different screen whereby you input your mobile number and then received a text with a code you had to enter.
And guess what. Yep it crashed again.
Not been able to log on since.

You would have thought that by now O2 would have had all the systems in place and tested if they new they were going to receive such high demand.

Waste of time if you ask me. Posted by Andy, UK
Got on first thing and received an error message. Phoned Cust. Services to make sure whether or not order had gone through.

Hant gone through, went on again at 8:45 and sailed through order process, iPhone being dispatched ready for friday.

Had much worse problems buying tickets in the past. Posted by Rob, Stoke, UK
This is an absolute disgraceful service.

I have been trying the web site since 8:00 and have got no where.

Called O2 Customer Support only to be disconnected after an hour – without speaking to anybody!

Who are O2 kidding? You unleash this sort of demand and you do not have capacity to deal with it. Customers who treated like this will remember O2 was behind it...
Posted by JohnD, UK
I just hope that the actual launch goes smoother than this. What a joke! Posted by Chad, UK
I have been trying continuously since 8.45am this morning. Considering it requests credit card details on a secure site, the order process has failed to complete about 20 times

There is inconsistency as to how the order process commences - sometimes it sends you a confirmation number (I have 8 sent to me so far) and other times it starts by requesting your personal details.

This is an absolute shambles - O2 were prewarned by having 160,000 phones preregistered. Of all the people talking on the O2 iPhone forum, it looks ilke about 10 have successfully placed an order.

This is not the sort of standard we expect of an Apple product, and O2 are the partner in this arrangement. My opinion of them has gone out of the window.

If they have sold out, I would be interested to know how - as their website has not been up for more than 10 minutes at any point in the day ! Posted by Michael, UK
Well it says on the homepage that they are sold out, but they could just be saying that to ease site congestion! Posted by filipharvey, uk
An absolute shambles - what are O2 ans Apple playing at - the terms p*ss up and brewery spring to mind. How can you launch such a technically hyped product on such a technically woeful platform ?

Been trying 10 seconds after having received my text and at 14.22 still trying.

This is absolutely ridiculous, but lets face it - they have us by the short and curlies as we are all still trying ! Posted by Rajiv, UK
Just received this message when submitting my order (again!!!)

"Thank you for your order. We are processing this and will contact you if there are any complications with the details you have provided."

Meaning??? Posted by filipharvey, uk
I received the same message, lets hope it's good news! Posted by Chris, United Kingdom
Just spoken to my local O2 store (Huddersfield).

When I asked what the plan was for buying an iPhone on Friday I was told, 'Register on the website or buy one from a store'. I asked how many they will have in the store on Friday and was told 'Don't know, we haven't received any yet but it will be first come, first served..."

So much for registering an interest by email.

Now O2 have my email address and I'll bet I now receive lots of iPhone or O2 spam but no 'phone. Super.
Posted by midger, UK / AZ
Same thing. A shambles.
I amp now planning to avoid this 'upgrade' altogether and see first how well the 2.0 software runs on my current iPhone.
With any luck O2 will be the real loser here. Posted by Chris, UK
I suggest that you check out o2's 3G coverage at http://www.webmap.o2.co.uk/?Search=Search before you consider the 3G phone. Many UK users may only be getting GPS as a upgrade.

Then again, even though my area is 3G enabled, I'm going to see what, if anything I'll be gaining by playing with v2.0 on my original phone before I reconsider giving an 18 month contract to O2. Posted by Cho, UK
They have my details and the spam has started... Posted by midger, UK / AZ