EE network changes - email access failure

[Flyingfemme]

Yesterday I had two text messages to say that EE had updated my network settings and I should reboot my phone. Did it this morning and, instantly, I cannot send or receive emails on phone data. My colleague landed at Heathrow this morning and turned on his phone - same problem. Email access is fine over two different wifi providers at home and work and his US phone can access the email servers. PC and other devices also fine.

EE claim it is nothing to do with anything they have done.....yet the call centre lady said she has had "lots" of calls with the same problem this morning.

Anyone else got the same problem? If so, can you share a fix? If not I shall be moving my company account quick-smart. Can't operate without mobile emails.

[MozzaSec]

EE and o2 haven't changed anything from what I can tell... 
My professional opinion is that its a config change on Giacom's side, either an ACL, DDOS mitigation etc

[fguk77]

An alternative story is that the Lumen network issues on the 20th July (referred to in the Giacom status on the 21st) are what started the issue.

As an IT person myself, often the first part of an investigation is to work out what happened just before the fault occurred.

However evidenced facts in this case are hard to come by from the Giacom side.

[MozzaSec]

Totally agree with you.. 

Start with what changed, who made the change and why, and work forwards from that... 

All I can comment on is what I have found from my own research and investigation... and all I can see is a Service Status and lots of people complaining, and trust me lots of ISP's and DataCentres use links into Lumens, so this issue would be affecting a lot of other customers as well.. 

[JohnMaz]

I had a reply back from the Complaints team as a result of my email to the CEO explaining the issue and referring to this thread - only a courtesy call so far.  She said she had spent several hours gathering information and finding out what teams were dealing with it etc.  So nothing to report as yet, but the lady said she is now copied into the progress of this network issue by the team assigned to it.  She will update me next week on Tuesday when she is next back in work.  Also confirmed that there were a building number of reports of the issue from other users now. 

It is worth reporting the fault.  I asked for an internal reference people could use to report it, but she didn't have that to hand yet.

[JohnMaz]

Just another thought.  But for those saying it's an issue with Exchange being version 2016 or even older. You can simply replicate the issue by testing whether you can get to https://webmail.giacomcp.com 

If the Outlook Web login page loads then it's working.  I just get a page timed out (blank screen) whenever I route my PC/Phone/Tablet through EE SIM card connection.

If you get to this page then Outlook will probably also work.  This implies to me that it's just basic https:// traffic as well as Outlook, and makes it a lot simpler to test.  It's really just a basic webpage running on IIS on giacom's server at this stage.  

[MozzaSec]

My comments about Exchange 2016 is that its old and in Extended Support which means all it gets is Security Updates until 2025 

I am making assumptions here, but it really isnt as simple as a HTTPS connection to an IIS Server, as OWA traffic still hits a CAS Server, and I would expect Giacom to use load balancing as per the diagram below..

[MozzaSec]

@JohnMaz @Flyingfemme @fguk77 

I believe Giacom have rolled out a fix to their Hosted Exchange infrastructure on the Data Centre side, so it should be working again..