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Some customers of mobile operator Three UK (VodafoneThree) are this morning reporting yet another partial network outage, which appears to be preventing users from either making or receiving calls. The issue also appears to be disrupting access to Voicemail and extends to virtual operators too (e.g. iD Mobile, Smarty etc.).
The problem, which also appears to impact text messaging and follows after a similar incident at the start of this year (here), started at around 8am this morning and remains ongoing. Customers on Three UK that attempt to make a call will hear only silence and the call itself will not connect, but data (mobile broadband) connectivity does still function.
A spokesperson for Three UK said on social media: “We’re aware of an issue affecting voice services and are working hard to fix it. Data services are working normally. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.”
UPDATE 10:06am
According to our industry sources, 3UK has informed their partners that 27% of their user base are being impacted by the fault and there is currently no estimated time for a resolution. But Down Detector is now starting to show a mild drop-off in complaints.
UPDATE 11:37am
Three have said that they’ve continuing to investigate the cause and have informed partners that “there is currently congestion on network components“. The operator has also introduced some changes to reroute traffic and thus reduce congestion on the working components, but problems remain for many customers (e.g. Voicemail does now seem to work, but you have to wait a few seconds longer for it to redirect you).
The operator does say that data and SMS should both now be working (a few customers did have issues with these too) and the impact on emergency service calls continues to be assessed. But sadly they’ve not issued any new updates to consumers since earlier this morning.
UPDATE 12:23pm
A spokesperson for Three UK just posted another update, which doesn’t add much to the original one: “We’re aware of an issue affecting voice services and are working hard to fix it. Data services are working normally, so calls can be placed via third-party messaging apps. We’re really sorry for any inconvenience caused.”
UPDATE 12:54pm
According to our sources, Three UK say they’ve observed a 84.48% degradation to call set up success over the past 1 hour – impacting 3G, 4G Voice and VoWiFi (Voice over WiFi / WiFi Calling). Since the start of these problems, this is said to have caused an overall degradation of 75.80%.
However, Three UK now adds that their engineers believe they may have identified a component causing the issue and are presently working on a plan to isolate it and then shut it down.
UPDATE 4:04pm
We’ve had another update from Three UK.
A Spokesperson for Three UK said:
“We’re continuing to work on an issue affecting voice services which started earlier today. A small number of text messages are also being affected by the issue. Data services are working normally, so calls can be placed via third-party messaging apps.
We know how frustrating this is, and we’re so sorry for any inconvenience caused.”
According to ISPreview’s sources, Three UK have seen a small reduction in call failures since the previous changes. The operator is now planning to restart additional components over the next hour, which should improve the current level of network congestion and restore more voice and SMS services.
UPDATE 5pm
We’re hearing that about 20% of Three UK’s customers on 4G may not have working SMS (text messaging), but there is at least said to be no impact to Emergency SMS. ISPreview’s sources also indicate that customers should avoid restarting their Smartphones, since if they do, then they may struggle to reconnect to the network and be left with no service.
So far this is turning into one of the worst days of mobile calling disruption that Three UK and their customers have ever experienced.
UPDATE 9:58pm
Many customers have had their service restored, but there are still quite a few experiencing ongoing issues. Further work is due to take place overnight and into tomorrow morning in order to fully restore the remaining services.
A spokesperson for Three UK said: “Following an issue earlier today, Voice and SMS services are now returning to near-normal levels. Data services continue to work normally and we’re monitoring the network closely. We understand how disruptive this has been and sincerely apologise for today’s inconvenience.”
UPDATE 26th June 2025 @ 7:06am
No further updates have been issued since late last night, but it’s clear a small percentage of Three UK’s customers are still experiencing calling problems this morning. We expect this to rise as more people wake up.
UPDATE 26th June 2025 @ 8:24am
Apparently, Three UK are saying that call failure numbers have reduced to less than 1% this morning – caused by one specific network node, which is now in the process of being restarted. Everything should thus shortly return to normal, we hope.