Cellphone network chokes on SMS joke
October 27, 2003 Edition -1
Hanoi – Vietnam’s largest cellphone operator has had its network clogged up for 10 hours.
This was all due to a hoax SMS, a company employee said yesterday.
Thousands of VinaFone’s 1,5-million subscribers received a message telling them it was the nine-year anniversary of the company and if they forwarded it to nine other subscribers, they would receive 90 Vietnamese dong (about R40).
The network became paralysed by the volume of messages being sent and received as subscribers tried to cash in on the fake offer.
The message was not authorised by VinaFone, which is in fact only seven years old. On Vietnamese television on Saturday night, it was forced to broadcast a plea not to forward the message. – Sapa-DPA
