Tiny bug causes major wave @ Vodafone

IT SEEMS that fellow INQ hack, Wil Ferret, hit a raw nerve with Vodafone over his story concerning Vodafone customers' attempts to flee the network in the general direction of O2 and the Iphone being blocked by the IVR system.

Vodafone couldn't have denied it more vociferously. A charming Vodafone spokewoman informed us that the company had spent a day trying to track the problem down.

Vodafone's technical bods discovered that there was, indeed, a bug in the customer care IVR system. However, the bug was so obscure that they're adamant it would only have affected a tiny percentage of the weekend's callers.

The spokelady naturally declined to comment on how many customers Vodafone had lost to the Iphone, of course. But what she could say is that significant numbers of people had visited Vodafone stores over last weekend.

And she revealed that Vodafone's best weapon against the Iphone seems to be the Nokia N95 allied to an explanation of how Vodafone's Musicstation online music service works.

So, in effect, the hype surrounding the Iphone is accidentally helping Vodafone flog Nokias. Highly amusing