In the first three months, Megafon reduced its retail network by 10%, closing more than 400 communication stores. Company representative Yulia Dorokhina clarifies that this was done to increase the efficiency of the retail network and reduce the number of new connections in the market as a whole: service penetration mobile communications in Russia it exceeded 180%, she explains. Megafon is ready to further reduce its retail network, but this will depend on market conditions, Dorokhina notes.
In Russia in general and Megafon in particular, there are too many communication stores, representatives of the operator have repeatedly said. In the summer of 2016, the general director of the company, Sergei Soldatenkov, at a meeting with analysts, promised to reduce the retail network by 25-40% to 2500-3000 stores within 3-5 years. The operator is going to focus not on increasing the number of customers, but on retaining the subscriber base and, by reducing retail, intends to reduce the annual outflow of subscribers from 50 to 35%, he was quoted by UBS analyst Roman Arbuzov at the time. Payments from new subscribers for services do not cover maintenance costs retail chains, follows from a Megafon report published later.
Megafon's largest competitor, MTS, is also reducing retail. In the first quarter, MTS reduced 7.5% of its network. By April, it had 5,725 communication stores, says operator representative Dmitry Solodovnikov. According to him, MTS expects other operators and cellular retailers to further reduce their retail networks. This will help stabilize the market, Solodovnikov believes.
Today, all specialized sites and my feeds are full of links to this material. I think that since it has been widely distributed on the Internet, it will no longer be lost, but nevertheless, I will save it here for memory. It is written emotionally, chaotically (I kept the original text without any edits, fortunately there is nothing completely unprintable there), but, of course, this text has its own truth of life. Yes, a person looks at everything from his own bell tower, from the bell tower of his “former”, but apparently there is resentment. I will not give my vision of the situation in Megafon, because we must start from the very legendary times of North-West GSM, but I will make only one remark. There is a culture of “company management” (with which we are far from doing well), but there is also a “culture of ownership”. It is clear that cellular communications has entered the threshold of saturation, this is a normal phenomenon that all industries go through, no one grows extensively forever. But then, confused by the lack of clear and, most importantly, quick results-producing goals, cellular companies went into chaos (I won’t go deeper into the topic). Here the shareholders would sensibly assess both the potential and opportunities, but... but instead they want “eternal growth.” I occasionally communicate with shareholders of telecom companies, they, of course, are recruited by analysts and consultants, and they really like to give examples from the IT field, for example, 70 people work at WhatsApp, and the company is worth 12 billion. But these are examples taken out of context, another thing is that the examples are very tempting, besides, people who have taken the initiative once (and often more than once) simply cannot calm down and “rest on their laurels.” It is at such moments that the “culture of ownership” manifests itself; you need to understand what can be demanded from companies, that is, from their management. At the same time, without achieving any significant successes on new fronts, a powerful “optimization” begins to show how efficiency is increasing on the other side. There are risky initiatives, and there are bad ones, but how can you tell the difference? This is where skill lies, this is where culture lies. Unfortunately, this is not only our misfortune and problem. I have the opportunity to communicate with foreign colleagues, the same problems, some on a larger scale, some on a smaller scale. What this leads to in the text, another thing is that the text gives a very narrow view of the problem.
As many already know, last Friday, May 19, MegaFon had 3 branches without communications. Volga region, Central branch and Moscow region. The accident is unprecedented for the company, and the MF will have a long time to clear up the consequences. Below is my opinion as a former employee (engineer/IT specialist) on why this could happen. Or, more simply put, how my favorite company got screwed.
Everything written below is purely my IMHO, it may be completely subjective, I may omit something, but since I have been stewing in this whole mess for a very long time, the memories and sensations are still fresh. This is my first and last post, you have the right to copy the text, distribute, quote and do whatever you want with it. I won’t log into this account again because I don’t believe in decency and freedom of speech. There is only one goal, to raise at least a little hype.
I worked at MegaFon for many years. With enthusiasm, a lot of rework, let's say with faith that I was doing something significant, that the future was ours... And the company really grew, its coverage grew, becoming the best. The professionalism of the team grew, the team became stronger, and the salary grew.
My colleagues and I began to have the first suspicions in 2012-13. When we suddenly found out that we were working on an outdated model. In those years, Mr. Tavrin was just forming a team, but he was already promising big changes. Federalization, optimization, cost reduction and other words that are pleasant to the ear of an MBA graduate. Now this could be the end of the story, but back then it wasn’t so scary. It would seem, who in their right mind would shake an infrastructure that is working and has been fine-tuned over the years? After all, they usually don’t skimp on engineers/IT specialists... But this is exactly what our top team did in the first place.
Plans to optimize costs were announced, and it was our technical staff that turned out to be the most unoptimized. The plans were grandiose, federalization of all monitoring systems, consolidation of operation into highly qualified centers in St. Petersburg and Samara, introduction of AI, and unified systems accounting/processing of accidents and tasks for the entire country. But, as always, there was a small but, it was necessary to cut half of the technical staff from the old teams. And for the second, allocate a quota with a demotion in positions. Guess who left?
Almost everyone who stood at the origins of the infrastructure in the branches left, operations in the regions had a particularly hard time, and few agreed to be demoted. What remained were young people without work experience and those who managed to retain their positions. It was planned to compensate for this with Unified Network Control Centers (UNCC), in which they wanted to gather professionals. And turn their work into a stream with a narrower specialization. The idea was that a group of professionals would serve several branches of the company at once. That is, if previously the entire Volga region was operated for 200 hours (conditionally), now it was necessary to operate 20 hours (conditionally) in St. Petersburg. And those 20 (conditionally) unfortunate people who remained in the branch were supposed to help them. New monitoring was supposed to help with this, but it was turned from powerful departments that previously supported the network (I believe the most stable in the Russian Federation) into a department of dummies who are not responsible for anything at all. And the most important function of the old monitoring - coordinating the work of other departments... was simply removed. If before it was a group of young guys who bothered everyone around until even the most minor problems were eliminated. That new feature monitoring has become sick! transfer of the emergency situation to those 20 unfortunate people from the branch and 20 from the Unified Control Center, who are now responsible for the entire technical part. And then only the most critical ones; the rest of the staff had to look for them themselves, using the web platform created for this. Need I say that all this turned into an endless series of mistakes, accidents and mutual hatred? And to this day it works through one place. And to improve statistics and beautiful performance reports, the accident criteria have been revised. What used to be a fucking star suddenly became an insignificant incident. In some categories, permissible degradations were generally increased by more than four times. What can I say, many types of errors on equipment have ceased to be processed at all, since they have allegedly become insignificant.
That's when I really started to feel the pressure of everyone knowing where you work. Complaints, comments from friends, and jokes about “the megaphone can’t pick up” started pouring in. And the company happily reported on the portal about how wonderful and smoothly everything worked. It would seem that you can live? But that was just the beginning.
Since 2014, so many different bureaucratic systems have been introduced... Endless forms, applications, web services, accounting systems. I was still bearable, but guess who suffered the most? Engineers, Technicians, IT people. Those who were, in principle, responsible for the most important things, our leadership systematically turned into typical officials. Nothing should happen without filling out the appropriate forms and reports, that became the slogan. Which one then The best way do turn him into a bureaucrat? Put him in the swamp of bureaucracy and pay him less money. The UCSCs could not cope with their work and demanded new staff quotas; our management, in turn, added more systems for monitoring infrastructure personnel to analyze the possibility of further reductions in branches. From close-knit teams, the infrastructure in the regions turned into heroes of the series Lost, who were simply trying to survive. From well-coordinated teamwork, everything turned into some kind of dragging the blanket over oneself. In response, the ECSCs began to focus their work on themselves, and eventually stopped informing others about what they were doing. Salaries literally stopped growing altogether, remaining at the 2013 level. Career growth has basically disappeared as a species. Continuing education and training is dead.
As a result, by the time I left at the end of 2016, the infrastructure in the regions had acquired an extremely deplorable appearance. My work (and my colleagues too) has turned into some kind of endless struggle with the system. ECCs that do not have the goal of doing their job efficiently, but only speed. Colleagues from other departments who are trembling for their jobs and simply hiding behind the wall of bureaucracy erected by the company. Linear and senior management who are afraid to tell the truth and only silently comply. All this under the guise of complete inconsistency, mutual distrust, and simply resentment towards the leadership and what is happening. It got to the point where ignoring everything except direct orders became the most popular way of working in the company. Simply because this is how business processes have become structured. Everything has turned into such a swamp that even corporate system applications, a request has appeared for help in finding the required application form... And all this against the backdrop of a growing number of complaints about communication and a complete lack of understanding (and indeed a desire to know) at the top of what is happening below. And most importantly, every single one of them understood that sooner or later this would lead to collapse.
It is important to note that MegaFon is a very large company, and all the consequences in it do not occur immediately, but by inertia after a fairly long period of time. Therefore, the collapse of the infrastructure did not really have an immediate impact. And so it turned out that the consequences hit the company only now.
Having read all of the above, your hair is probably standing on end, but no, this is only a small part of the problems. The following should be added to the already written wall of text. The accident occurred because:
Firstly, the broken equipment was lobbied by the director of development (technical development of the network, who is now the director of infrastructure sick!), with the education of a marketer... Someone asked the techies why they want a telecom vendor, and not HP? No.
Secondly, how many people have been trained to operate this equipment? A handful. And then they cut it, which is what I wrote about. And until 2017, in general, everyone except Moscow and ECUS went with any kind of beard training.
Thirdly, federalization affected everything. This is how three branches were connected to 2 nodes. This looks especially fresh and innovative compared to past years, when we reserved everything we could, more than once. Distributing equipment geographically to each region of the branch, up to several data centers per city.
Finally, fourthly, this is the complete burnout of those personnel. This puts terrible pressure on those who remain, when people feel that nothing good lies ahead for them. What can I say, my most optimistic colleagues even began to admit that the company was falling apart. What can I say, this year, due to the fact that MegaFon did not fulfill the profit plan, it was decided to give engineers/IT workers an annual bonus equal to half their salary. Those people who conscientiously fulfilled their goals all year, got up at night to eliminate accidents, and worked as laborers on weekends. Simply because the company did not make enough profit. Someone can say that they didn’t receive enough money because the accidents were poorly executed? By the standards of old times, yes, but by current standards it’s excellent. How enthusiastic and responsible does the average engineer now approach their work? But I don’t even raise the issue of some of the lowest salaries in telecoms.
And the other day, Mr. Soldatenkov (director of MegaFon) addressed the employees, hinting at how bad they were for allowing this to happen. Former colleagues sent me, and I was blown away. So, no one gives a damn anymore, they don’t give a damn about the network, they don’t give a damn about communications, they don’t give a shit about corporate values. The predecessor of the current general director destroyed most of what was working perfectly, and did everything to make it as difficult as possible to work with what was left. The current one has also deprived people of financial motivation, so don’t be surprised by what’s happening. WannaCry, both HLR incidents, were largely the result of the collapse of what was happening in the most important part of the company.
There is so much more I could write, but what's the point? I left and now work for a much smaller company. Is it better than the current MF? Much. I no longer need to convince my subordinates to go crazy on weekends just for a thank you from me. Or convincing a colleague that we simply cannot raise wages without changing positions... And for those pennies that he receives, he must also try. What about the others? I think they will leave sooner or later; the young people who were hired in 2014 for lower positions have already gained enough experience and will now go to new companies. What about MegaFon? MegaFon will continue to agonize for a long time, unless suddenly someone at the top gets away from the consulting agencies... and at least sees the light for a little while.
This is probably true not only at MegaFon, but I don’t know about others. And there will be many more accidents, and with even greater consequences. Because a runner who skimps on his legs… a runner doesn’t last long.
Not long ago, there was a global failure, which took a long time to fix the problems. However, subscribers often observe difficulties in which Megafon communication does not work today 2019. In specific cases, there may be a lack of Internet access, loss of connection with all subscribers (including other operators), inability to use various services, and much more. It is possible to solve the problem yourself only in cases where its occurrence depended on the subscriber himself. In other situations, specialist advice is required.
If a subscriber detects any problems in the network, there are likely to be several different reasons, depending on what type of failure occurred and in what category of communication. Conventionally, they can be divided into the following groups:
- Calls. In this case, it is possible for the user to be outside the network access area, that is, in areas where there is no operator coverage. There may also be technical failures of the device or the company itself.
- Internet. There is also likely a lack of coverage, service congestion or internal problems global network.
- SMS. The instant messaging service may also fail. They are often associated with internal problems system, lack of messages in the package (applies to tariffs with a subscription fee), as well as funds on the balance.
IN in some cases There may be difficulties using the company’s specialized services (television, official application, etc.). It is possible to solve communication problems with Megafon today 2019 yourself (in the settings) or with the help of company representatives in person or by calling the contact center.
Communication problems Megafon today
A lack of connection or poor quality is often likely due to problems with the network itself. In such cases, two reasons are most likely:
- carrying out preventive work (temporary in nature, as a rule, these works are notified in advance);
- server infection computer virus(in practice it happened several times).
Nowadays, communication difficulties arise quite rarely. Sometimes during holidays (in particular, New Year's), they are caused by excessive network congestion. But the problem is also temporary and does not require a mandatory solution.
No connection Megafon today
A complete lack of communication may indicate possible problems:
- Being out of reach. Problems often arise when traveling in another region. To avoid them, it is recommended to find out information about the availability of coverage in advance.
- Internal breakdown of the phone. As a rule, this concerns damage to the SIM card slot, modem or antenna.
- Damage to access points. In such cases, the tower providing communications in a specific area is probably not working. Check this information perhaps by calling or submitting an online request to the customer support center.
You should also find out information about possible breakdowns or preventive maintenance at the customer support center. However, in such cases, you should be prepared for the fact that network congestion and busyness will not allow you to quickly find out what is wrong with Megafon communications today.
What are the problems with Megafon today?
The company provides classic services, as well as high-speed Internet throughout Russia. Every year, coverage areas in the regions are growing, and the organization itself is developing and improving the services provided. However, not all cities still have an LTE connection; some do not even have access point towers. Decide this problem possibly by user request. In other cases, 2G and 3G connections are usually connected, which function almost everywhere. If they do not connect, it is necessary to check the serviceability of the device being used and its antenna. You should also pay attention to the connection indicator, which shows the distance of the nearest tower from the subscriber.
There is another problem, also related to the presence of towers. It consists of frequent network congestion, which does not allow it to be used fully. In such cases, coverage extension is also required.
The connection is not working well - what to do?
First of all, if Megafon does not work, you need to find out the nature of the malfunction. The company often notifies about possible failures on official pages V in social networks, as well as via SMS messages. You can also call the phone hotline to clarify this issue.
If the reasons do not lie in connection failures, it is recommended to carry out the following operations with the phone:
- reboot the device;
- remove the SIM card and reinsert it into the slot;
- move the SIM card to another device (this way, it is possible to find out if there is a possible breakdown in the phone);
- configure the network manually (select an operator and connection type: 2G, 3G or 4G).
As a rule, at least one of the proposed methods works.
Why doesn't 3G and 4G Megafon work?
Separate access towers are responsible for the 3G and LTE (4G) networks. And if Megafon does not work today when using this particular coating, there are two most likely reasons for the phenomenon (in addition to equipment malfunction):
- absence of a subscriber in the coverage area;
- malfunctions in the operation of towers.
If you previously managed to use services on the territory successfully, the most likely reason is a technical failure of the coverage. In this case, information about the malfunction should be reported to contact center or chat with a specialist.
SMS does not work on Megafon: what to do?
First of all, you need to check the balance status or the presence of SMS in the purchased package of messages (if any). If in both cases there are no resources, the message will not be sent. To resume using them, you will need to top up your account or purchase additional package services.
Other possible reasons include:
- Incorrect entry of SMS center number. It is necessary to check the accuracy of the recorded number and the presence of +7 or 8 at the beginning (the number must be 11 digits).
- There is a ban on sending instant messages. To disable the service, you need to dial *330*111#.
- Phone limitations or problems. In this case, you should check the SIM card on another phone, or reboot yours.
If Megafon still doesn’t work today in terms of sending SMS, it is recommended to contact support service. It is available at the hotline number, technical support, as well as in online chat on the company website.
conclusions
Despite the constant expansion of network capabilities, communication problems continue to appear and recur for most subscribers mobile operator. But the cause of problems does not always lie in the incorrect operation of services, and often the prerequisites for this are technical failures of the user’s device, zero balance or the subscriber is out of coverage area. In all cases, it is possible to solve the problem of restoring a high-quality connection, but to do this it is necessary to correctly determine the cause of its deterioration.
In Russia, there was a massive failure in the work of the mobile operator Megafon. Users from Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Penza, Saratov, Samara, Ryazan, Ufa and other Russian cities stated that they were unable to make a call - the network was unavailable.
First, the company’s official Twitter posted advice to set the network type to “3G only” and reboot the phone, and now a standard response is sent to all affected customers: “Currently, there are massive communication difficulties. We are already fixing it. We apologize for any inconvenience caused". The company added that it does not have data on a specific time frame for fixing the problem.
Unsuccessful dialing
Photo report: Megafon failure turned into memes
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Megafon said that dialing success in Moscow and several other cities had decreased by 30%, noting that calls are still possible using instant messengers. Unfortunately, this did not satisfy many of the company's clients, who cannot use instant messengers without access to Wi-Fi.
As the press service of Megafon reports on its Telegram channel, the cause of the failure was an accident on one of the elements of network equipment.
In addition, one of the company’s offices also said that they had an accident, but the time frame for eliminating the consequences is still unknown. Employees who wish to receive compensation are asked to write a statement at the company office. When asked about the reasons for the failure, it is reported that a hacker attack cannot be ruled out.
Some time after reports of Megafon failures, information appeared in the media that other mobile operators, for example Beeline, also encountered communication problems. In a conversation with Gazeta.Ru, the company's press secretary Anna Aibasheva said that the network is operating normally without massive failures, and the spread of a false message about problems with the operator's network is associated with the response of a technical support employee about the operation of one base station companies.
MTS press secretary Dmitry Solodovnikov also informed Gazeta.Ru about the stable operation: “The MTS network is operating as normal.”
But Yota, which operates on Megafon’s networks, has really encountered difficulties. Company representative Inna Zhideleva told Gazeta.Ru that some Yota clients in several regions, including Moscow, are experiencing problems using mobile communications. “Technicians are already carrying out restoration work. In the near future, the problem will be completely resolved,” said the company’s PR manager.
We didn’t have time to come to our senses
Megafon became one of the victims of a large-scale hacker attack the WannaCry virus that happened on May 12. This fact was confirmed to Gazeta.Ru by the company’s director of public relations, Petr Lidov.
IN telephone conversation with a correspondent Lidov said that on the day of the attack many office computers MegaFon began to reboot and display a message demanding a ransom for decrypting data, and not only Moscow, but also other Russian cities suffered.
Fortunately, the spread of the attack was slowed down, and literally a couple of hours later, the entire Megafon call center was restored so that subscribers could communicate with the support service. The company representative emphasized that WannaCry virus did not affect communication services in any way, and the personal data of the operator’s clients remained safe.
In January 2017, Megafon users also complained about the unavailability of some services - Multifon, MegafonTV, as well as problems with the site. The company explained the failure as an accident in the data center (DPC), caused by abnormal frosts in the region.
After some time, the services started working normally. Then the representative of the mobile operator, Yulia Dorokhina, told Gazeta.Ru that order in the system is measured not by the presence of failures, but by the ability to quickly eliminate them. “This was done by the company’s specialists in the shortest possible time. And at night on a holiday,” added Dorokhina.
All residents of Russia know firsthand that Russian mobile operators like to write off money from subscriber accounts under strange pretexts and sell unnecessary paid services, mislead and profit from their subscribers in every possible way. Today it became known that mobile operator MegaFon, which is in good standing with many, cruelly scams all its subscribers out of money, and it does this, of course, secretly.
This story was told by a user with the nickname InGrib on the Yaplakal forum, but it is absolutely reliable and confirmed by screenshots. It all started with the fact that one of the residents of Russia did not use his number for several months, after which it was automatically blocked - this is a common normal procedure. Since this number was important for a subscriber of the MegaFon operator, he went to the operator’s salon to restore it.
When restoring your number, you need to top it up with 200 rubles, and also choose any of the new tariff plans available for connection. In order not to pay a single ruble, the Russian opted for the “Go to Zero” tariff plan, which has no subscription fee at all. As a result, restoring the number cost only 200 rubles, but after logging into Personal Area On the official website it turned out something completely different.
As it turned out, to the free tariff plan, for which you do not need to pay a fixed penny, the mobile operator MegaFon quietly connected four paid unnecessary services, including “Replace the dial tone” (93 rubles per month) and “Who called+” (37 ,2 rubles per month). At the same time, the remaining services seem to be free, but if you read their description carefully, you will notice that they will become paid after some time, when the “trial period” ends.
For example, the “SMS XXS” service is free for the first 10 days, but then it costs 3.5 rubles per day, that is, 105 rubles per month. The Internet XS service looks no less interesting, since initially it costs 190 rubles, but from the second month this amount increases to 210 rubles per month. Moreover, in your MegaFon personal account it is displayed in the “Without” section subscription fee", as if on purpose.
As a result, if the buyer of a tariff plan from the MegaFon operator does not log into his personal account immediately after connecting, that is, in the first days, then he may lose a large amount of money, which he will find out about after some time. So free tariff plan“Go to zero” without a subscription fee straight out of the box costs 450 rubles per month.
Of course, it depends on everyone, but in our humble opinion, the MegaFon operator cruelly scams all its subscribers out of money by connecting them to absolutely unnecessary and useless services, and the client is not even warned about this. It’s good if you come across an advanced subscriber who will immediately go into his personal account and turn them off, but what about older people and those who are not at all familiar with electronics? Pay 450 rubles per month for a tariff without a subscription fee?
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