The O2 upgrade store fell over today shortly before 8AM after it sent out text messages to all existing O2 iPhone owners informing them of the special pre-order page. Supposedly pre-orders for the iPhone 3G were available from 8AM although almost 2 hours with unresponsive pages and failed orders they took the site down for maintenance again. The backup ordering system that was supposed to cope with thedemand also failed miserably.

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O2′s web capability  is normally something of a joke, but this was something they could have prepared for properly. They know exactly how many contracted iPhone users they have and could easily have done the sums for server capacity. This is just the demand from the existing iPhone owners, so it looks like a very good year for Apple.  I’ll update this post when it’s back up properly.

Edit: – Still down 2 hours 38 mins so far..

Edit:- site is backup but incredibly flakey – after over 4 hours!