Customers of 1p Mobile Suffering Network Connectivity Problems UPDATE2
Several thousand of 1p Mobile’s customers in the UK are currently suffering from network connectivity problems, which appears to have started yesterday morning and remains ongoing today. At the same time, the operator’s website reports that they’re also having “issues with our customer service telephone system” (probably due to high demand).
The issue initially only affected a small portion of 1p Mobile’s customer base, hence why we didn’t cover this yesterday. But we’ve observed that this seems to have increased over the past 24 hours, and our inbox has been getting quite a few gripes about it, including from many customers who are frustrated at 1p’s lack of updates (or any semblance of a service status page).
According to the complaints, customer affected by the issue have been finding that the network’s data (mobile broadband), calling and text (SMS) connectivity hasn’t been working since yesterday morning. The only indication we could find about this on 1p Mobile’s website was on their contact page, which didn’t address the issue itself and highlighted how their support lines aren’t working correctly.
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“We are currently experiencing issues with our customer service telephone system and some calls are not connecting correctly or are being cut-off mid call. We apologies for any inconvenience caused and our phone engineers are working on the issue currently,” states 1p’s contact page.
However, after a bit of digging, we also found this support post buried in a customer reply on X (here): “The issue has been linked with the renewal of Boosts, top-ups and account changes that have been applied since the morning of the 12th of May.” Given that the provider works by monthly top-ups, rather than direct debits, this could help to explain why the complaints seem to be growing with each passing day.
What’s not so clear is why 1p Mobile aren’t currently able to highlight the issue with a proper service status update, which is particularly relevant given the state of their support lines. Sadly, we don’t have a press contact for 1p Mobile and couldn’t find one on their website.
UPDATE 15th May 2024 @ 9:10am
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Some customers are reporting a return to normal service this morning, albeit sometimes only after they rebooted their Smartphones. But others still seem to be experiencing problems. As yet, 1p Mobile itself hasn’t provided another update.
UPDATE 15th May 2024 @ 11:32am
Thanks to several of 1p Mobile’s customers for forwarding the following email they received from the operator, which apologises for the recent issues and outlines their approach to compensation. Now if they could just committ to adding a Service Status page too..
1p Mobile Service Letter
The network issue affecting outbound services was resolved (22:30 on 14 May) by the network engineers and your service should have returned to normal.
Please restart your phone/device to ensure that it re-registers with the network for all services.
We will continue to monitor all affected customers throughout today, but do not expect for there to be any further issues relating to this incident.
To compensate you for the lack of service we have extended your top-up due date AND/OR your Boost refresh/end date by 3 days.
Once again, please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Regards
Penny
1pMobile Customer Services
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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New customer. Just ported number over after using for 3 weeks. Been excellent to this point, and really happy with their service via EE, but lack of status page needs addressing. It’s not even behind a customer login.
I’m having internet issues with EE on my phone too
I hope this isn’t another systems breach issue, card’s I have used for 1p mobile have coincidently been getting inudated with overseas payment attemps this weekend and again this morning.
Correction….
Seems like my issues are tied to Lyca Mobile, I’ve seen a lot of the same problems being reported in the forum.
Same here internet, call and sms are all down with 1p mobile
Email from 1pmobile going to customers:
We are currently experiencing a network issue with outbound services that may be affecting you. You may find that when making a call it does not connect, when sending a text/SMS it does not go, or when using mobile data you can’t access any websites. All inbound services are not affected, i.e. you can receive calls and texts.
Our engineers are currently working on a fix and hope to restore all services later today.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Regards,
Penny
I had issues last week with connectivity. Data connected but unusable unless on 5G. Lost all service at one point. Right next to an EE mast. Wonder if it’s related?
Apparently it’s been like this since at least the 11 May.
Not a single tweet or status update. What a joke.
Automatically topped up 3 x sims on Monday morning. Since then have been unable to call out, text or use data. I chased them up 2 times yesterday and was given no ETA of a fix. I knew it was related to the top-ups but it seems this didn’t click for them until late yesterday!
Only an hour ago did I receive a formal email from them informing me of the problem.
Still no statement on the website and no statement on Twitter(X). No response to my tweet either.
Unfortunately we have had “all of our eggs in one basket” and no ability for any of us to call out, not good when have small children. Hence we will be looking to stop two of the sims and go to other networks.
Unacceptable to not even acknowledge the problem.
Working OK for me yesterday and today.. on 4G.
The phone line problem message has been on their website at least a few weeks too.. so that isn’t anything new.
No email rcvd here.
1p joke.
Same here for me. I received an email overnight saying they had processed payment for another month and since then it’s been broken. Curiously I had data earlier today listening to a podcast while driving, but then no internet when I tried viewing some pages and cannot make calls even with wi-fi calling enabled. Their email just came through, but this is really bad.
FWIW it’s working ok here but I noticed the bit about their phone lines being down on Sunday evening.
I picked a bad day to activate my SIM… except everything seems fine for me.
(I bought the SIM late April with a £10 boost but have only just activated it.)
Same here . What kind of mobile communication company that doesn’t properly communicate with the paying customers. Atrocious. Can we complain to Ombudsman?
Complain to ofcom.
Been off for 24 hours, two numbers.
Been totally without any service – only in mins calls.
No data, text or calls. Unable to retrieve voicemail.
Frustration is no help from 1p when being in contact via email.
Working for me
I am still off. going over the 24 hours now!
How come they still haven’t been able to fix this!
I added a credit to my 1p mobile account yesterday afternoon, so that I could make an international call. My phone worked fine afterwards, but this morning I was unable to make any phone calls. Neither within the UK nor internationally. At 12 noon I received an email telling me there was a system error. I can still use the Internet and can receive calls. This is not acceptable and there need to be more updates. I still can’t make any phone calls.
I have the same problem, no contact with 1p mobile. doesn’t work very long. I don’t know what to do or transfer my number elsewhere.
Still not working days later, despite email saying to be fixed yesterday.
This should be getting Ofcom attention now.
15/05/2024 Update:
I can make outgoing calls now but still no data
As of yesterday morning 14th May I’ve been unable to make outgoing phone calls or send text messages or use mobile data. As 1pMobile is pay-as-you-go I’d applied a 1 month “boost” on 13th May from available credit on my account. The boost has been applied and payment taken.
Joined as a new customer in June 2023 and had been pleased with service so far, but had experienced similar problems in September 2023 and over 3rd/4th/5th November 2023 while travelling in Wales.
To experience a third “lack of network” issue in less that 12 months (and with no customer status updates or responses on any occasion) is not acceptable and makes me doubt my decision to switch to 1pMobile. My previous network providers (O2 and Vodaphone) were completely reliable over several years.
This morning ( 08:04 May15th) normal service appears to be restored.
Wasn’t working as of this morning. Normally do a phone restart every few hours, had doen one first thing and no difference, after your comment, did another one and its working again now.
Honestly though, I had been delighted with service since joining but this is starting to make me question if I should stay with them. The lack of customer updates. Even if you can’t go into detail, a statement should confirm they are aware, people are working on it and an expected estimated fix time.
You can have the best tariffs and service but if its unreliable and no information during outages, that destroys all the good work and you get a reputation.
I hope that the management team are doing a process improvement plan after this and ensure that customers are not left in the dark again. I’d also like to see at least 20% off next months bill for past few days. 20% is like only £2 off my bill, but it’s something towards not having a service I paid for and could not use.
I have data again since rebooting my phone a few minutes ago, having done so after reading a post from another user on Twitter. The same trick didn’t work last night. Again it seems 1pMobile is slow on communicating updates.
Thanks for the article Mark. I have 3 sims with 1p
Mobile and this was the first I heard of the problem.
I’ve not had any problems with any of mine but then one of my sims had its monthly boost applied the day before this issue started with the other two due to have boosts applied later this month.
The lack of official updates from 1p Mobile is very disappointing and is making me seriously consider switching all sims away from them before any further boosts are applied in case they don’t fully resolve this.
I received a new 1pmobile SIM yesterday (14th May) and activated it at around 21.15. At 23.30 wasn’t working yet. I switched off the phone and when it switched it on this morning, everything was working fine, calls and data. Although my dashboard says I’ve consumed all of my 25GB, but I guess that’s some bug in the system, since I’ve checked with a speed test and browsing and it works fine.
Hopefully it’s resolved soon, but I agree they should communicate things better.
1p mobile post on 09:20 today
Good morning!
Customers struggling with the network issue, please restart your devices as this should reset the connection with the network. Penny
https://twitter.com/1pMobile/status/1790658460796821943?t=nyDoiP7neuh_sceo_UdcPw&s=19
I’m on 1p – didn’t know there was an issue until I read this story, all data, texts and calls going in and out are fine.
As for lack of updates, just one time I had a glitchy signal and got a live chat and they messaged within minutes.
I love the people who love to shame networks, prioritising a fix is probably their first port of call. So much negativity and shaming goes on, love to see any of the above run a network.
I think you find most people are commenting on lack of service update information page actually. People understand there may be an issue but 3 days later and an email near the end saying it would be fixed that day and then wasn’t. Whatever response you hoped to stir up, was wasted…
I’ve just joined to test the network from EE, what a load of S h 1 T from 1p mobile – it takes over 30s to connect a call!
Seems to have happened again, my boost renewed over the weekend, now I can’t make calls again.
Yes mine will not connect either