UK mobile provider Three Mobile has apologised for an ongoing network outage that affected thousands of customers on Thursday.
Users report being unable to make and receive phone calls – including to the emergency services – during the outage, with many understandably taking their frustrations to social media.
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The outage, which began at around 1:00pm UK time on January 2023, is continuing into the evening according to user reports on the Down Detector website and the network itself. The company’s most recent update at 7:38pm, saw the company state in a post on X that a small percentage of users are still being affected.
The company wrote: “We’re aware of an ongoing issue affecting a small percentage of voice services and are working hard to fix it. Data services are unaffected. We’re really sorry if you’ve been affected by this.”
As of 8pm UK time there were still almost more than five-thousand customers reporting the inability to access services via Down Detector. The number of reports appear to be steadily falling from a peak of 10,713 at 2:30pm. However, it’s not clear whether this is because less people are reporting, or less people are experiencing issues. Three has more than ten million customers in the UK.
UK communications regulator Ofcom commented: “We are aware that Three is experiencing problems with its network. We are in contact with Three to establish the scale and cause of the problem as soon as possible.”
Users of the mobile virtual network operators Smarty and ID Mobile have also reported outages, as they rely on Three’s network infrastructure.
Three recently got the green light for a massive £16.5 billion merger with Vodafone. We’re watching this situation closely and will update you when Three let’s everyone know the problem has been resolved.
Concentration concerns
When the number of UK mobile networks becomes fewer and fewer, the more people are going to be affected by an outage to any one of them.
Vodafone and Three’s merger means there are only three (small T) network options for UK mobile users moving forward. And less options for switching when things go wrong, as they have today.
It wasn’t so long ago we had Orange and T-Mobile (now EE), O2, Three and Vodafone all with their own spectrum and mobile infrastructure.
More competition for customers, better prices and more incentive not to balls things up – as has happened today.
