Some customers of mobile operator Three UK are this afternoon being impacted by a partial network outage, which is preventing them from making or recieving calls (this often returns a “call failed” message). But 999 (emergency) calls and data (mobile broadband) connectivity, including related IP based calls (e.g. WhatsApp), continue to function.
A spokesperson for Three UK said on social media: “We’re aware of an issue affecting a small percentage of voice services, our team are working hard to fix this as soon as possible. We’re really sorry for any inconvenience caused. Data services and 999 calls are unaffected, please bear with us.”
The fault itself appears to have started at around 1pm today and is still ongoing now. In addition, it’s worth considering that the phrase “small percentage” will still represent a significant number of users from an operator with a customer base of c. 11 million. Complaints have been coming in from right across the UK.
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UPDATE 3:56pm
The issue also appears to be impacting Three UK’s MVNO partners, such as Smarty and iD Mobile.
UPDATE 5:09pm
We asked Three UK if they knew when the issue might be resolved, but we just got sent roughly the same statement as they’ve already given online. A spokesperson for Three UK said (again): “We are aware of an issue affecting a small percentage of voice services and are working hard to fix it. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused. Data services and 999 calls are unaffected, please bear with us.”
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UPDATE 7:25pm
Still no new updates from Three UK and we’ve now seen several people reporting, contrary to the operator’s earlier statement, that 999 calling is being impacted for some users too. In addition, some users are reporting that WiFi Calling has also been disrupted, albeit not yet enough feedback to fully confirm. All of this happening just before a major storm system is not ideal.
Situations like this represent, in our view, a strong argument for Ofcom to intervene and force operators to be more transparent with the causes of major outages and to issue regular updates.
UPDATE 7:32pm
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One of our industry sources has informed us that Three UK have identified the fault and is in the process of deploying a fix to the impacted network component. We understand this took place between 5pm and 6pm, but so far we’re not seeing a significant improvement in the issue.
UPDATE 24th Jan 2025 @ 7am
Catching up a bit from last night. Three UK deployed additional changes to their network at around 9pm last night in order to restore service, although their internal testing showed that uses were still experience issues with making and receiving calls. A few hours later, at 11:26pm, the operator issued the following social media statement.
Three UK Statement (11:26pm on 23rd Jan 2025)
Our teams are still working to fix the ongoing issue affecting a small percentage of voice services. Data services are unaffected. We’re aware of a number of reports that customers have not been able to connect to 999 calls.
Data from the emergency services shows normal volumes of 999 calls being placed via our network are being connected. We’re taking these reports very seriously & are investigating this urgently. We apologise if anyone has been unable to successfully contact emergency services.
While it is likely your call will connect correctly to 999, if you have any issues please try another network or landline. Please do not try and test 999 calls from your device as it may prevent genuine calls being answered quickly.
Since then, there haven’t been any further updates, either from Three UK or our industry sources (most will have been sleeping). But we have seen various customers reporting that calling returned to normal at around midnight, although we’re still seeing some complaints this morning and that may rise as people wake up.
UPDATE 24th Jan 2025 @ 8:03am
Officially, we haven’t yet had an updated statement from Three UK itself this morning, but they have informed their network partners that services should now be back to “working as normal” and that they’re monitoring the situation. A quick look at the Down Detector site shows that complaints remain above normal, albeit well off what we saw yesterday, and some of today’s problems could be influenced by the current storm hitting UK masts.
In addition, if you are one of those people still having problems, then some users have reported being able to resolve it by enabling and then disabling Airplane mode or restarting their mobile. We expect that Ofcom will be taking a very close look at those earlier reports of customers facing difficulties with reaching 999, which is not an unfamiliar topic for Three UK (here).
UPDATE 24th Jan 2025 @ 8:27am
Finally, an updated statement.
A Three UK spokesperson told ISPreview:
“Following an issue affecting voice calls yesterday, services have returned to normal overnight. We continue to monitor and review all services throughout today to ensure full stability. However, today we expect to see an additional impact on our service due to Storm Éowyn in some areas. We have already deployed extra engineering resources and planning for these areas, so we can bring sites that are impacted back online as soon as it is safe to do so. A normal volume of 999 calls were connected yesterday and our monitoring confirms the service is working fully this morning. We continue to investigate the small number of reports that we received about 999 call failures. We apologise sincerely for the inconvenience caused by the issues on our voice network yesterday.”
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Also seems to be affecting Smarty too, I seem to be struggling to receive incoming calls as well (15:48).
actually l was receiving calls fine just cant make any, got my mate whos on orange to ring me and it worked fine, but at home we are all on smarty so we didnt know until my sister called and found out (thought if l had came online first l would have obviously found out here), though l did try calling my mate and he said he couldnt pick up the call from me though it was ringing ld assumed it was a truecaller issue as we all use truecaller.
I experienced this issue.
Turning aeroplane mode on and off fixed the issue for me.
All of my friends in Wales are only contactable if they have 3G service. 2 friends in Nottingham area with same problem.
Can confirm it’s not working on iD, either. Incoming callers just hear an endless dial tone – but the phone doesn’t ring.
Despite their claims to the contrary 999 calls are also affected.
Three needs to see major consequences from the regulator over this outage as it’s putting lives in danger.
If a mobile user is unable to use their own network, through lack of signal. All UK mobiles will try an alternative network and use that network to call 999. Let’s assume poster knows this and actually called 999.
So this seems to have exposed a serious issue, in this situation the phone still had a signal(as did mine) so it seems it continued to try Threes network rather than switch to a network that had a signal AND was working.
@CharlieB
The challenge is that if you have signal, but the network fails to connect the call, the mobile has no way to distinguish “cannot connect because my network is having trouble” from “cannot connect because the emergency call centre is having trouble”. If the emergency call centre is having trouble (indicated because the call won’t connect), switching to a different network and trying again could well increase the outage duration.
In turn, networks can keep their signal available for data, but indicate that they do not support calls at all, which will cause the phone to change network to make an emergency call, and to refuse normal calls completely. This is the mechanism that’s intended for this sort of outage; however, Three chose to keep their calling service up from the perspective of mobiles, since it wasn’t a complete outage, and some customers were still able to make or receive calls (whereas if it indicated “no calling service”, no customers would be able to make or receive calls on the Three network).
Given that the networks are guaranteed to be regulated (because of their spectrum licences if nothing else), it’s reasonable for the mobile device to work on the assumption that if it has usable signal for calls (which is something the network signals, and can stop signalling if calls are faulty), any call failure is a consequence of a problem at the emergency call centre end. In this case, that assumption was broken because Three indicated at a network level that they could take calls, but failed to connect them – and that’s an already solved problem as long as the network is willing to take the commercial hit of preventing users from making or receiving calls at all while it fixes the problem.
The need from Ofcom here is for a stonking big fine for a breach of the General Conditions of Entitlement, part A3, so that all the operators are aware that you’re better off turning off unreliable calling services completely (and facing customer fury because they can’t make or receive calls, other than 999 calls) than dropping 999 calls due to a fault. Without that, networks will not do the things they’re “supposed” to do when they have this sort of problem, because it’s cheaper to have a few thousand 999 calls fail than to upset millions of customers by dropping all calling ability completely.
And specifically for the VodaThree post-merger situation, a quick fix would be to enable roaming between Vodafone and Three networks, including for calls. Then, when Three has a similar outage, it can disable calling on the Three network, causing all phones (but not data-only devices) to shift to the Vodafone network until Three restore calling services. You can then teach the Vodafone network how to forward billing records to Three customers, and it improves things for everyone. Note, though, that this is a big deal operationally, since it’d cause all phones to move to Vodafone’s network and calling services, even those not actively making or receiving calls, and would put heavier load on the Vodafone network.
Hi there not been able to phone since about 1pm could do with a update.
3 has way too many outages in the past 2 years, about time we get explained the root of this issue and get automatic compensation. VF also has an every now and then outages so them both merged will not surprise me. I’ve never heard EE and O2 having regular outages.
I’ve had zero national outages, but several local ones with Vodafone. It’s funny how 3 seem to have the worst customer service and the fastest network is probably the only thing keeping people with them… but it is and always has been unreliable as hell. The fact their infrastructure failed on the first national emergency test and were the only operator who did should say more than people realise. The random spikes of latency and random one way audio issues and completely full signal but no usable data haven’t been fixed on three in about a decade tells me that the core of their network is an absolute mess. Can’t wait until they’re gone tbh. Vodafone who actually spend some money on infrastructure will only improve things.
Oh… So that’s why I couldn’t make a call earlier today and as of 1915, I still can’t.
To keep you up to date, the Great War ended in 1918.
We have always been at war with Eurasia.
I can not phone anybody but receive calls all the time whoever I tried. It is very inconvenient and frustrating.
I could not even call 3mob number to complain about it.
Both WiFi calls and usual calls are not working. SE16 5NJ
No 999 calls means they’re in serious trouble with OFCOM.
Confirmed here (Gloucestershire) – my wife was unable to make or receive calls just now (Three/Smarty). Switched to WhatsApp and we’re rolling again. So it’s still not fixed as of almost 9pm!
21:10 still no service didn’t receive government emergency message either
Considering 3 and Vodafone are merging, it would be nice to see them both agree to provide service to 3 customers in times of issues like this. Mum’s 92 and has no signal because she is on 3, at least she has her Telecare service in case she needs assistance.
The customer always comes last.
Is there actually a technical mechanism to do that, before the integration of the networks actually happens? Not sure how it works but people would probably need settings changes, delivered by SMS?
Cant make phone calls or receive them since 15.00 this afternoon just checked now and still can not,its very frustrating ive got health issues and waiting for phone calls from the hospital which i cant receive.needs fixing now its a joke im paying a contract and cant get the services.im seriously thinking of pulling away after this is solved.
Don’t bother, all 4 of the uk networks are as crap as each other, the only investment they ever make goes into updating the book of B.S. they feed the subscribers.
My girlfriend (based in Coventry West Midlands) has been trying to phone me all night from her 3 contract handset but still not working as of 22:14.
SMS is working and I can phone her. (I’m on Mozillion).
Ok so that’s EE.
As far as I am aware all SMS is now on RCS which is data based. I certainly could not send any SMS without turning my Data on. I was on a Three Business tariff but I lost a major opportunity yesterday so I terminated today and migrated to EE as I am already with them for internet.
Jay Gee sorry to disapoint, but where I live that is an hour south of Birmingham Three’s data service is exemplary. I’ve been with them for three years without checking. In the first year I was with them the service was unuseable for a few days once but compensation was forthcoming.
On Smarty. No incoming calls (appears to be ringing, but phone not actually ringing), no outgoing calls (either never connect, or -about 10% of the time- they may connect for a few seconds but with no audio, or they disconnect after a few seconds). Started 1pm, now 11.30pm still the same.
NOT SUPRISED. I’ve had SIX Three Network OUTAGES from my local mast going offline in the past two months.
Go though the same garbage in online chat, INFORMING THEM POLITELY THAT THEIR mast has been knocked offline due to what I believe was an intermittent power outage and THEIR systems have not rebooted. Even o2 and EE can automatically reboot. After 30 minutes they run three run the test, and voila it comes back online, and make the usual stupid claim of engineers working in the area and issues may take week to resolve lol.
THREE ruined their home 4G broadband with the FAILED transition to 5G. An update, which Three refuse to recognise forced the majority to change their ASP to the mobile three.co.uk to access basics such as banking!!!
IT IS UNACCEPTABLE THAT I HAVE TO PERSONALLY TELL THREE TO REBOOT/RESET A MAST. THE FIRST OUTAGE IN NOVEMBER I LET SLIDE FOR THREE DAYS, WHICH SHOWS THREES SYSTEMS ARE COMPLETELY USELESS AND NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE.
I could start making calls by 23.30pm but was unable to from 14.3pm
and storm Eowyn hasnt hit yet.
Smarty seems to be working OK for incoming and outgoing calls this morning.
Don’t know for anyone else but what seemed to be happening was rather than the outgoing call failing instantly it was getting held up within the Three system, this could explain why 999 calls were also failing, they were getting held up within Three rather than being rejected to allow the phone to try another network. As stated elsewhere Ofcom need to investigate urgently, bearing in mind how they clobbered BT when the 999 system failed entirely.
Exactly proved my point, as usual no technical reason for this outage and no automatic compensation of our bills. The 3 exec team thinks they can splurge some words onto a statement like a 5 year old saying “im sowwy” then calls it a job done. There is now increased pressure on 3’s outsourced call centres of customers asking for compensation.
I am with Superdrug Mobile which is a MVMO of Three, and it affected us as well from 9am yesterday morning it started. It affected Wi-Fi calling, voice calls – dialling and receiving, 999 calls, text as well. I hope that it is working again, or it should be, but looking at Downdector Three is still having issues even today as well as some of their MVMOs.
I must’ve been one of the lucky ones, I’m on smarty and never had an issue with calls yesterday, I received and made calls throughout the day and evening!
Seems as though there may be another outage today. Outgoing calls not going through for me except when wi-fi calling kicks in. Also based on reports on down detector: https://downdetector.co.uk/status/3/