Many MobiFone subscribers went irate at the disrupted connectivity of one of Vietnam’s leading mobile carriers on Friday, as the company admitted it was not an April Fools’ Day joke.

MobiFone users in several central provinces were unable to make phone calls or even send text messages to intra-network subscribers in the morning.

Subscribers were confused as they could not either call the mobile carrier’s hotline or visit its website. Some even thought that they were made April Fools’ Day victims by the network operator.

However MobiFone then responded that the technical issue was “100 percent not an April Fools’ Day joke.”

MobiFone is making a system upgrade, which is meant to “better serve customers,” but in reality it “affected subscribers in Hanoi and the central region,” the network operator said on its Facebook page at 10:00 am.

Affected subscribers could not make phone calls, connect to the Internet with 3G, or access MobiFone’s website, according to the statement.

The technical issue probably began at 7:00 am, according to subscribers’ complaints posted online, and then MobiFone claimed that “all services returned to normal as of 10:00 am.”

The carrier also apologized to and hoped for sympathy from its subscribers.

While MobiFone said only people in central Vietnam and Hanoi were affected, some users in Ho Chi Minh City told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that they faced the same problems as early as 6:30 am.

The website of MobiFone has in fact become inaccessible since Thursday, when the carrier encouraged its subscribers to refill their account balance on the platform, instead of using prepaid cards, to enjoy a 50 percent extra value.

A number of subscribers have lodged complaints over the website shutdown on MobiFone’s Facebook page, with the mobile carrier eventually citing its “system upgrade” as an excuse.

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