UK's O2 apologizes for smartphone problems

The head of mobile phone operator O2 has apologized to customers in the British capital who were unable to make calls after the group's network was swamped by people using smartphones.

In an interview published in the Financial Times newspaper on Tuesday, O2 Chief Executive Robert Dunne said some customers in London had periodically not been able to make or receive calls or transmit data because of pressure on the network from smartphones such as the iPhone.

The network problems in the second half of the year were blamed on increased use of applications by customers with smartphones that repeatedly pull data off the Internet at short intervals.

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