Twitter authentication messages back on Vodafone but spat may not be over yet

Looks like someone at Vodafone’s head office, or at Twitter and Facebook, or all three took notice of social media users being unhappy and did something.

I wrote last week that people were being locked out of their Twitter accounts because authentication messages sent as texts stopped arriving, with no warning.

That same week, the messages started to arrive and people could log in again. Again, no notification as to why but it’s good the two-factor authentication texts are back.

Texts arrive from a different shortcode — 4195 — now but for how long? I can’t tell you, as Vodafone is not responding to queries on this. Nor is Twitter for that matter.

The company hasn’t said anything at all about the feature going for months on end — ironic, given that Twitter started out as an SMS-based social network.

Maybe nobody at Twitter cared enough to make a statement about its text messages being dumped on one of the world’s largest telcos?

It’s only 2FA authentication texts that make it through. Direct messages are not sent as texts via Vodafone as with other telcos.

The fact that neither Vodafone nor Twitter will comment, and that the text message feature is only partially restored makes me think the spat is not resolved. A further case in point there is that Vodafone is not relisted on the Twitter supported carriers so we’ll see if the 2FA messages will continue to arrive.

If you use 2FA for added security on Twitter, bear this in mind. Chorus discovers people really want UFB Chorus has provided an update (tinyurl.com/chorusupdate) on Ultra Fast Broadband, no doubt to coincide with the Government pushing through the increased Telecommunications Development Levy (TDL) and the Rural Broadband Initiative Extension.

The Chorus update reads like the company is surprised that people really, really want fast broadband connections, and an apology for being slow to install UFB which providers have been complaining about for a while (tinyurl.com/ slowinstall).

Well, Chorus doesn’t say sorry as such, but chief executive Mark

Surely those hindrances could’ve been spotted

earlier?

Ratcliffe promises the company is taking responsibility for its part in being slow.

Some of the slowness is due to inefficient processes and seeking property owners’ permission, especially for flats and offices which take a median of 130 days for installs and houses down a right-of-way where the wait is 110 calendar days. Surely those hindrances could’ve been spotted earlier and not several years into the UFB rollout?

There’s a $50 million new ordering portal, and Chorus has been talking to Spark, Vodafone and CallPlus to “agree consistent criteria for the enduser experience” as well.

We’ll see where it ends up, but Chorus still needs to step up the UFB rollout a few notches.