Sky Mobile UK Customers Still Suffering Connectivity Problems UPDATE2
Some of Sky Mobile’s customers are continuing to experience connectivity (calls and data) problems today after the operator suffered a large disruption to 3G, 4G and 5G services yesterday afternoon, which Sky initially claimed to have fixed. The remaining issue seems to only be impacting data (mobile broadband) connectivity and not calling.
The problems first began at around 4:30pm yesterday, when customers reported a mix of problems with calls failing to connect and unresponsive data connectivity. Sky then reported at 9:38pm that the “problem has now been resolved,” although a smaller number of customers have continued to report that this wasn’t completely true, as their data links still weren’t functional.
A spokesperson for Sky has this afternoon confirmed that they’re continuing to experience problems: “We’re extremely sorry that some customers are still experiencing issues with their Sky Mobile data services. We had implemented a fix yesterday evening which restored services for the majority of impacted customers. Our teams are working hard to resolve this problem for any remaining customers still experiencing issues, as quickly as possible.”
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The Sky Mobile service is based off a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) agreement with O2 (VMO2), although we note that none of O2’s other MVNO partners appeared to be experiencing any big issues (i.e. this seems Sky specific). But we did note that O2’s own complaint volumes for the same period were a little bit above normal, albeit not to the same scale as Sky Mobile.
UPDATE 13th April 2024 @ 7am
Perhaps surprisingly, Sky Mobile hasn’t issued an update on this since yesterday morning and, as we enter the 3rd day of problems, there are still plenty of customers reporting that mobile data isn’t working. Some of those affected have this morning found that they were able to re-gain mobile data connectivity by performing everybody’s favourite fix for computer problems (i.e. turn the device off and on again), but not everybody.
Sample Customer Complain 1
“Now into third day without mobile data – Sky Mobile is a joke, absolutely no chance of getting through to so called customer service and not even a text apologising. Already commenced transfer to Tesco Mobile for the SIMS on my account and will be cancelling Sky Glass and Sky Broadband as soon as I can!”
Sample Customer Complain 2
“day 3 with no data, I’m a new customer, moved from o2 when I got a new phone. If not sorted by tonight. I’ll be moving provider. I understand things not working all the time but sky should at least keep their customers updated as to when they think It will be fixed even if not for another 6 days at least we know and can plan our days around not having data.”
Sample Customer Complain 3
“Day 3 of not mobile usage for me too. Tried turning on off, resetting mobile service function etc, no change. This morning doesn’t show any 3G/4G or any mobile signal.!! Any thoughts please??”
We are reaching out to Sky again in the hope of securing a useful update on this most unusual of problems. Meanwhile, Sky’s Community Forum has a long mega-thread on the issue (here).
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UPDATE 13th April 2024 @ 11:03am
We’ve had another update.
A Sky Mobile spokesperson said:
“We’re sorry that some of our Sky Mobile customers have been experiencing issues with using their data services. The network is now stable, and our technical teams continue to monitor this closely. We apologise again for any inconvenience our customers may have faced during this time.”
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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A very unusual one for sky mobile.
Apologies as this is not related to this thread, but would like to know what other contributors think about this situation, just the same.
A family member lives in a exchange area that went Stop Sell on the 1/11/2022. TalkTalk, their present ISP, were contacted and asked for a new contract. They told TalkTalk that they did not want to go Full Fibre as they did not want their garden or driveway tracked. The ISP gave them a new broadband and telephone contract on FTTC, which they had previously, for another 2 years. Seems the Openreach Stop Sell rule means absolutely nothing to TalkTalk! Would be good to hear the thoughts on this from all contributors. — Big Dave, Ivor, XGS etc.
I’d ask in the forum section matey
I suspect TalkTalk dealt with it internally, so on paper it wouldn’t have gone through as a stop sell and just a continuance of the existing service.Had they attempted to use a new provider, then they would have had to take FTTP.
TalkTalk LLU (MPF) is not subject to Openreach’s WLR stop-sell.
@Ex Telecom Engineer: Thanks for the reply, this was what I was thinking, but still makes a bit of a mockery of the Openreach Stop Sell rule. How many people had felt compelled to take FTTP, when they neither wanted or needed it, when the status quo could have been maintained for some at least?
Openreach do incentivize CP’s to sell FTTP through bulk discounts and their Equinox discount schemes. But in this case it’s likely there was no change of product or new copper service required so Talk Talk could just continue without having to change the service to FTTP.
@binary: Thanks for your take on this. The Openreach rule states: When FTTP reaches 75% of an exchange area and the customers address can receive it, then FTTP has priority over other products.
Talktalk are not Openreach and don’t use Openreach’s wholesale products, but instead unbundle the lines.
If the line was already connected to Talktalk then Openreach would not be involved in any contract change.
TalkTalk absolutely use Openreach’s wholesale products. They wouldn’t sell anything FTTC or FTTP through Openreach if they didn’t. They do not use BT Wholesale but that doesn’t matter for these purposes.
Sky is sh1te anyway.
Exactly
@The Witcher: The Broadband speed remained the same 40/10, but the phone service went from free unlimited calls to pay per call on the new contract. I believe TalkTalk put this through disregarding the Sop Sell rule, so they could retain the customer. So much for if you re-contract, upgrade or regrade!
*Stop Sell
They didn’t put anything through as far as Openreach go – Openreach saw no order or change.
@XGS:
When 75% of the homes and businesses connected to a particular exchange can get Full Fibre you won’t be able to buy our old copper products if Full Fibre is available at your premises, this includes Gfast, Superfast Fibre and Standard Broadband.
This applies to anyone who’s signing up to a new contract, whether you’re switching, upgrading or re-grading
“This applies to anyone who’s signing up to a new contract, whether you’re switching, upgrading or re-grading”
None of that happened as Openreach’s customer was Talktalk, you were already with Talktalk and your contract and service changes happened on Talktalk’s network.
As far as Openreach are concerned their customer Talktalk made no changes.
@Munehaus: The Exchange concerned went Stop Sell on the 1/11/2022, so as a new customer or moving to TalkTalk from another provider, then FTTP is the only option now. My relative, an existing customer, was allowed to remain on FTTC when taking out a new contract recently, regardless of Stop Sell being in force at the Exchange. @Ex Telecom Engineer gave a possible.reason why this may have been allowed.
Again: nothing changed from the Openreach point of view. Your relative stayed on the same product. No new Openreach order required. No new Openreach contract as FTTC is a rolling 30 days between TalkTalk and Openreach.
I’m saying the exact same thing Ex Telecom did, as is Munehaus, but without the part about retaining a customer.
No order went to Openreach because no order needed to go to Openreach as nothing was changing and no new contract with Openreach was being initiated.
The order would have been: everything is exactly as it was before. Same LLU MPF, same FTTC, same circuit, same speeds, same level of service care. Please break this customer’s service reprovisioning it and charge us install fees for the privilege.
To finish my comment: doesn’t really make sense to send such an order. Openreach don’t care for right now and don’t require CPs to inform them of customers remaining on the same product.
FWIW I was mistaken on this as well but a few moments of thought and it makes sense: anything else would be ridiculous.
@XGS: TalkTalk have given my family member a new contract on FTTC 40/10 for 2 yeas with pay as you use phone calls. From what you have said he will be able to stay on this forever and a day as long as he doesn’t require an increase in speed with TalkTalk or move to another provider, or LLU comes to an end. This being the case, Stop Sell means nothing to those connected through LLU and don’t want any changes, some people will be hard to encourage to make the move to FTTP! Sky also have their own LLU equipment in this Exchange.
It’s nothing to do with LLU either. BT Wholesale use the same product Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone, etc, do. All of them use ‘LLU’ as far as Openreach go.
BT Wholesale customers don’t send orders to Wholesale for anything besides changes either: FTTC contracts are with the retail ISP not Openreach or BT Wholesale: the contract with them is a month.
The stop-sell is a gentle off ramp to move users across while minimising disruption to service providers.
TalkTalk wanting 18 month contracts on FTTC extracts the urine to be honest.
Still no mobile data at 8pm on 12th April. Anyone else still having problems. My husbands sky sim is working fine!
Still no data connection for me either but my daughter’s is working perfectly
Also still no mobile data at 8:45pm. Got through to customer services but they would only say it should be sorted by the end of today. My wife’s sky mobile services are all working fine so it appears to be random who is still affected. Not impressed by how long this is taking to fix !
This is a regular thing with sky, and also with their broadband too, but it’s ok,they do apologise…funny they still expect us to pay full price each month tho!
If it is that bad, then why do you stay with them? Like people who complain about British Gas and then stray with them or BT and stay with them.
I learnt years ago never to have all my eggs in one basket, did that with BT, never again.
I know sport wise you may not have much choice, but to be honest if they that bad, I would go without.
My mobile still only working with internet – no data, so not any use as a phone
Switchover to digital voice ?
Harrow was scheduled to have this start late last year. Nothing noted until this week when, without notice, broadband went down from 00:00 until 06:00 (This is the first time there’s been a BT BB outage round here in 20 years). When I looked-up the issue, BT site said major engineering works . . but no further details.
I note from Down Detector that Sky customers are reporting loss of broadband and mobile in Harrow today.
Wonder if its anything to do with the fact the LLU took place way before the BT/Openreach split and only affects long-standing Sky customers ?
It isn’t anything to do with that the exchange was unbundled before Openreach were a thing, no. The LLU process and products didn’t change.
The planned works were PW1710854046 done by BT Wholesale, and nothing to with digital voice. Sky don’t use BT Wholesale for broadband or telephony. Sky Mobile has been dodgy all over the place and is nothing to do with digital voice. No faults for Harrow exchange wide.
BT paused digital voice mass migration back in 2022.
Whatever BT did, it improved the latency on the BB signal – halved.
Every little helps.
Indeed. Nothing to do with Sky Broadband or Sky Mobile though. Or the BT Consumer migration to digital voice.
Sky sent this text out earlier
“Hello. We’re sorry for any inconvenience the recent Sky Mobile issues may have caused. The network is now stable, and we are monitoring closely. Thank you.”
Instability with its Nokia core platform? Who would’ve thought… Its a shame they’re vendor locked again. But Sky still haven’t fully migrated their mobile core from Huawei yet but Ofcom and MPs aren’t rushing either. Should they ask the govt to go back to Huawei?
It would solve a lot of problems if they did! But no doubt the security minister will start jumping up and down then screaming China China China etc. Skys a bit rubbish anyway with its penny pinching on its network, wouldn’t surprise me if cost cutting was partly to blame for the outage.
Cannot connect calls
There is still a problem and lots of customers being ignored by sky stating they are fixing the problem and to give them 24 hours! It’s been over 24 hours for a lot of people not being able to make calls and getting an automated message saying you cannot call this number for every number you try to call. Lots of venerable isolated people on the thread on the forum really worried they can’t make calls and still no response from sky.