The 3 Mobile network failed late yesterday evening and was down all night with users unable to make or receive calls or access internet services on their smartphones.
@ThreeUKSupport no data anywhere from Euston to Bletchley via train. Now at home on Wi-Fi, no mobile data here either. Done the idiot checks, data off and on, phone off and on… can’t sign in to the three app for iOS. Is it me or you? pic.twitter.com/j6madiuDYS
— Marked (@Mark_edmo) October 16, 2019
This has led to outrage on Twitter as thousands across the country were left without the ability to even make emergency calls or contact friends and family. Particularly hard hit were night workers who rely on their phones at night – taxi drivers in particular who couldn’t receive calls would have lost jobs and engineers were left without vital links to their offices and fellow workers.
To make matters worse, 3 Mobile remained silent all night only posting this morning on twitter to acknowledge that they were having issues:
we’re currently experiencing technical difficulties with voice, text and data, meaning some of you will be experiencing intermittent service. please accept our apologies, we’re sorting this out right now. check back here for updates
— ThreeUKSupport (@ThreeUKSupport) October 17, 2019
The only statement released to the press was one line
“We are currently looking into an issue with our network. We would like to apologise to our customers for any inconvenience.”
– 3 Mobile
Many smaller networks resell 3 Mobile services as their own and these networks have also been affected.
Some users have been able to regain service by turning their phone off and on again, but for others while they’ve got bars indicating a signal they’ve still been unable to make calls.
If you are on the 3 mobile network, best advice is to find WiFi and use services such as Skype or WhatsApp to communicate with friends and colleagues until the service is restored.
Three Mobile is down for the entire country. All these years I've been telling the train WiFi to fuck off and look at me now, crawling back for its sweet, sweet Internet. Sorry train, you were always right. #ThreeUK #threemobile
— Phillip Hudson (@mrphudson) October 17, 2019
3 Responses
Yes, The three network is still down at the moment, unfortunately.
It’s really once in a blue moon that Three has any issues (that I’ve experienced, here in Surrey). Although when it goes down, it really goes down. I think their communications department should have really said more about the situation throughout the night… although their customers may not have been able to read what they were writing… cos their network was down!?
That’s the only issue when you use OTP.