BT, EE, and Vodafone were down LIVE updates — outage impacting trio of mobile providers

Tale of the tape (so far)

So here's what has gone down so far:

• EE and Vodafone users started reporting outages at 7am BST
• This started to spike at 11:05am
• Currently, EE stands at over 760 outage reports and Vodafone at over 730

Both seem to be concentrated in Manchester and London being the two worst-hit areas.

What is affected?

Looking at the % splits on what people are reporting, an overwhelming majority are point to mobile connectivity problems — specifically the ability to make or receive calls.

Vodafone's customer support has acknowledged a similar issue. "Due to some technical issues some customers will be experiencing issues making or receiving calls," the rep said on X.

Who is impacted?

Looks like the outages for EE and Vodafone are pretty spread out in main city areas of network congestion!

Oddly, in our own testing, Tom's Guide writers don't seem to be having call issues... We'll investigate this further.

The outage reports continue to spike

We're now nearing 1,000 outage reports for both Vodafone and EE.

EE is yet to acknowledge this issue, and Vodafone has confirmed that "technical issues" are stopping calls from going through.

The plot thickens

So we're doing our own tests, and as you can see, EE's not experiencing any issues. Our Computing Editor Darragh Murphy successfully made a call to me entirely on his cellular network.

If you are seeing any issues, please reach out to us!

What do users have to say?

While Vodafone users are just busy asking if Vodafone is down, EE users are providing a little more detail.

First off, we're receiving reports that users have tried to call, but the helpline has acknowledged that the service is down for calls and texts.

People are also reporting that they can't use mobile data.

Outage reports continue to rise on EE

Reports of outages are getting higher on EE, now topping over 1,300 reports with no sign of slowing down.

EE has yet to notify users of the issue, although it appears not all users are affected (Darragh here, and I could make a call using EE's cellular network). We'll keep you posted.

Service status on EE states "good network"

After checking the service status page on EE, it states the mobile network is good in my area, which is around the centre of London. So it appears the outages could be more widespread and possibly may not be due to network coverage.

However, Downdetector shows many of the outage reports are based in London, along with Manchester, Birmingham and more. If you're affected by issues, let us know!

What's the issue?

The problem with EE appears to be around calls between networks, a source has told Tom's Guide. This looks to be the same technical issues with Vodafone, with problems with making and receiving calls.

While calls within the EE network appear to be fine, it's calls to other networks that are the issue. Be aware that if you're making calls to users on another network, you may experience problems.

Vodafone outage reports are rising

Users are experiencing more problems with Vodafone, as Downdetector now shows over 1,100 outage reports. As mentioned, it appears to be due to interconnected calls between networks.

We've tried testing calls through EE, and it appears to be able to connect to other users. The issue may not be affecting everyone, but if it is, Vodafone states it will working on a fix as soon as possible.

EE is investigating the issue now

EE has reached out to several users on X, with people stating they can't call anyone. EE has responded by stating this is shared with the team and is "looking into it now."

Hopefully, this means the problem with phone calls will soon be resolved, but outage reports continue to rise according to Downdetector.

Don't forget Voxi and BT

Outages like this don't just impact the named carriers — it impacts any Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) using their networks too. And for Vodafone and EE, that means Voxi and BT respectively.

You can see users of these two carriers are also have troubles according to the big spike on Downdetector. Hopefully these networks' problems are linked to the same cause, and will be fixed at the same time as their parent networks.

Yep, we're impacted too

Conveniently, we have EE and Vodafone users on staff here at TG UK. So we got them to call each other. Neither call went through.

They failed in slightly different ways, though. When calling from Vodafone to EE, we got a "call failed" error. But when we called from EE to Vodafone, we instead got an instant "call ended". Perhaps that's significant, but either way, the outage is clearly still ongoing.

Meanwhile, at the other big networks...

We can also see spikes in user complaints on Downdetector for Three and O2, the other major carriers in the U.K. However, it's hard to know if they're actually getting caught up in the issues too, or users are just struggling to get through to the two carriers we know are impacted.

Three's spike is almost as large as Vodafone's, going by the graph. But while the rate of complaints about O2 has risen sharply in the past couple hours, it's still a smaller total than the others.

Trouble at TG Towers

Having checked the EE app for any official confirmation of the problems, we found EE has marked Bayswater (the rough area of London where TG's office is located) as an impacted area.

The discussion page linked doesn't give any additional information about the current outage. If that changes, we will let you know.

Past the worst of it?

Over the past few minutes, it appears that complaints to Downdetector have been decreasing. Vodafone's graph has plateaued, while EE and BT are trending downwards, dropping from and 2,610 and 1,296 reports at peak to 2,034 and 669 respectively at the moment.

We're crossing fingers that this means an end to the outage is in sight. At worst, it means that we've hit a critical threshold of users noticing they're having issues, and people are now aware something's wrong and can work around it.

Confirmation from BT

At the top of BT's Service Status page, there's now a prominent yellow banner warning of an "Ongoing issue with calls across our network."

The message continues to say that "We're working urgently to fix the problem and will provide further updates as soon as possible. We're sorry for any inconvenience caused."

Trending downwards — except for one

EE, Vodafone and BT are getting fewer and fewer complaints according to Downdetector. While it's still high for O2, things are heading downwards there too.

Except things are happening differently at Three. While there was a dip not too long ago, complaints remain high. Hopefully this isn't a separate issue, but it's something to keen an eye on.

Three facing its own issues?

Going to EE's website, we can see it's reporting problems in the area of TG's London office, like we saw with BT earlier.

The message lacks detail, but it's good to see Three acknowledging the issue.

What are the chances of a refund?

Wondering if today's outages might net you some money back on your bill? Uswitch's mobiles expert Ernest Doku has some insight.

“Ofcom advises that compensation for mobile signal outages is ‘dependent on the circumstances’, however in extreme cases where repairs take much longer you may be entitled to an additional refund or account credit.

“If your landline stops working, you will be entitled to compensation if it has not been fixed within two days, but make sure to report the issue to your provider as soon as it happens. You will receive an initial £9.98 if the service is not fixed two full working days after you report it, and then £9.98 for each full day it is still not fixed after that."

Where we're at

Here's the state of play just ahead of 6 p.m. BST, starting with EE:

And here's BT:

Finally, here's Vodafone:

Your Too Long, Didn't Look summary: EE and BT seem to be trending downward in terms of outage reports after a big spike earlier in the day. Reports of outages at Vodafone remain high, however.

What the status pages are saying

We took a look at the official status pages for BT, EE and Vodafone to see what the companies are saying about the outage.

It's a mixed bag.

BT's status page currently has a message that reads, "We're working urgently to fix the problem and will provide further updates as soon as possible. We’re sorry for any inconvenience caused."

The EE coverage map, shows service is good everywhere it offers mobile data. We checked several postal codes and all of them were listed as having excellent coverage.

On Down Detector, EE is declining but is still sitting above 1,300 reports.

Vodafone, meanwhile, won't even load for us. We tried entering different postal codes on the company's network status checker page, but the map has been stuck spinning the entire time.

As far as we're aware, Vodafone has not acknowledged today's issues outside of asking people to DM customer service on social media.

Still down - no updates

Despite an earlier steady decline, things have stablized for all three telecoms with multiple reports coming in on Down Detector.

We're still seeing responses from customer service accounts saying the companies are looking into the issue.

We have yet to see any new updates from any firm about the outage.

Trending toward over

Over on Down Detector all three services have finally gone under 500 reports with BT at 300, as of this writing.

EE still has the most at 467 while Vodafone is the lowest sitting at 210.

We'll wait a tad longer but it seems like things are starting to return to order after several hours of problems.

It just won't go away

This outage is hanging around even as gets later into the evening.

We're still not seeing any updates from any of BT, EE, or Vodafone.

However, we are seeing some comments saying that people are able to receive calls from non-BT, EE or Vodafone numbers which isn't encouraging for calling between those companies.