Fans suffer last minute scare as E-vision goes down

Al Ain/Dubai: World Cup fans feared they were going to miss the action in Germany on Tuesday when a technical fault hit services from cable network E-Vision just hours before the day's first game.

Phone calls deluged E-Vision with inquiries after the glitch shut down the network, taking all of its 246 channels off the air in Abu Dhabi, Al Ain, Dubai, Sharjah and Ajman.

Football enthusiasts had paid as much as Dh500 for a special World Cup package.

Bur Dubai resident Partho Dutta from India was one of the many customers to contact the company on Tuesday afternoon, keen to see the channels back up and running before the clash between South Korea and Togo, which kicked off at 5pm.

"I went to the customer care centre and there were more than 20 people there wondering what was happening. [E-Vision] said they were ... upgrading ... their software but it seemed like the wrong time to do it."

Customers, however, gave conflicting reports as to when services ended. Some said it went down as early as 1.15pm while others said viewing was normal until 2.30pm. By about 3.30pm, services were back to normal, safely in time for the day's opening game.

E-Vision's customer care line remained swamped for much of the day, with a recorded message telling callers: "Sorry, the number you have dialled is currently busy, please try again later. Thank you."

Humaid A. Rashid Sahoo, CEO of E-Vision, told Gulf News a technical fault had suspended transmissions.

"Our technicians immediately responded to the fault and restored the service as quickly as possible. We apologised for it," he said.

E-Vision, a subsidiary of communications company Etisalat, hit the airwaves in 2000 as the first cable TV network in the UAE.