The Home Location Register (HLR)

1). T-MOBILE PHONE NETWORK CRASH Millions affected as Germany suffers a total T-saster! Millions of Germans were left mute after the country's biggest phone network crashed - a total T-saster! It was a monumental telecommunications cock-up as T-Mobile's 39 million customers were left unable to use their mobile phones to send calls or SMS text messages. The crash happened at 4.09pm local time, and left half of Germany panicking as they bashed away at their keys only to see the dreaded message: "Network unavailable." Friends, relatives and colleagues who attempted to call T-Mobile customers were confronted with an engaged tone and then "call failed". “T-Mobile had a national network failure,” said spokesman Dirk Wende. In the Bonn headquarters all hell broke lose. Technicians frantically searched for the cause of the crash. At 5.55 pm, two hours after the start of the network collapse, the first signs of an explanation appeared. Spokeswoman Marion Kessing told BILD: “The calls and texts service has been affected, but not land lines. The internet is still working. We can exclude sabotage, a hacker attack or computer virus.” Customer help lines were jammed as millions tried to call in to complain about the crash, and T-Mobile’s website was overloaded. When customers tried to click on the 'report a problem' button, they were confronted with an ironic message informing them that the site was experiencing technical difficulties! At 7.58 pm, Marion Kessing gave the all clear. “The cause of the problem was a mistake in our own software. The Home Location Register (HLR) collapsed”, she told BILD. The HLR is a data bank which has every mobile number stored and assigned to a certain region. Without this data, the network doesn’t know how to reach mobile phones. Two of these servers collapsed and almost the whole network was disabled. By 7 pm, T-Mobile had already begun to re-boot the servers. It was hours later before all the connections were back to normal. The firm's technology manager Günther Ottendorfer said: “We regret the incident and would like to apologise to our customers for the inconvenience.”

2). Die Qimonda-Krise 1999 gliedert Siemens sein Halbleitergeschäft aus, Infineon wird gegründet. Die trennen sich 2005 vom riskanten Chip-Geschäft: Qimonda wird gegründet (2006). Seit April ist die Produktion eingestellt. Ein Jahr später fallen die Chip-Preise massiv. BILD berichtet als erste Zeitung über die Krise. Das Rathaus dementiert – noch! Qimonda macht 274 Mio. Euro Verluste. 2008 sind es bereits 1,08 Milliarden. Im Januar 2009 Insolvenz. Im April wird die Produktion eingestellt. 2200 Mitarbeiter landen in einer Auffanggesellschaft. Ein Investor ist bis heute nicht in Sicht.

3). Freddie Mac CFO in apparent suicide: police source Wed Apr 22, 2009 6:58pm EDT RESTON, Virginia (Reuters) - The finance chief of troubled U.S. mortgage giant Freddie Mac, David Kellermann, was found dead on Wednesday after apparently committing suicide, a police source said. Kellermann, promoted to acting chief financial officer last September after the government took control of the company, was found hanging in the basement of his home in an affluent Washington suburb at around 5 a.m. (0900 GMT). There was no immediate indication what would have driven 41-year-old Kellermann, who was married and had a young daughter, to kill himself. Kellermann, a 16-year veteran of Freddie Mac. BOW TIES, CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS - He was known as a cheerful personality around the office with a light-hearted manner. Former colleagues said he sometimes wore a bow tie. He volunteered in the community with a charity for the homeless. He and his wife had a daughter who neighbors said is aged about 5 or 6. "They were the last people in the world you'd think this would happen to," said Susan Unger, who lives across the street from the Kellermanns in the Hunter Mills Estates of million-dollar homes. Unger and her husband said the Kellermanns were known on the street for having the fanciest Christmas decorations. They even decorated their brick house for Halloween and with hearts for Valentine's Day. Freddie Mac's interim chief executive, John Koskinen, visited the Kellermann home on Wednesday morning and later addressed employees, encouraging them to take time off if they needed to grieve. Freddie Mac delayed for at least one day the routine sale of new notes. The executive's death was the latest of several recent blows to Freddie Mac, including David Moffett's resignation as chief executive in March after just seven months on the job.