A huge Three mobile network outage has hit many parts of the UK, leaving thousands of customers unable to make / receive calls or use their mobile data. Social media channels have been inundated with users venting their frustration.
Initial reports of the problems start surfacing from 1am Thursday, October 17. Further spikes of Three mobile issues came in about 6am.
According to the website Down Detector, which measures outages across various mobile and broadband networks, at the peak of the outage more than 4,000 people registered their problems with the Three network.
The Three network is used by customers with ID Mobile, Tesco Mobile, GiffGaff, Sky Mobile and Lycamobile. Various areas in the UK have been hit, Including London, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, , Nottingham, Liverpool and Newcastle. Mobile phones display a message “Service Not registered”. Restarting the phone has temporarily fixed the issue for some mobile customers, but the fix only works for a short period of time.
Three is aware of the issue and state they are updating their systems to try coping with the problem. The network has blamed the issue on faulty software provided by third party supplier Ericsson.
A message on the Three website said it was currently down for “essential maintenance”. Users that have been able to call customer services on 333 are greeted with a message saying: “If you’re calling about problems with your signal strength, we’re working hard to fix this now.” Forty two per cent had problems accessing the internet on their mobile phone, with 20 per cent complaining they had no signal.
