Sunita Somvanshi
Hundreds of thousands of UK mobile customers found themselves unable to make or receive calls Thursday morning as a major outage struck multiple networks simultaneously. The problem, which began just before 11:00 BST, has primarily affected EE, Vodafone, BT, and Three, with call services dropping while data connections remain largely functional.
“We’re experiencing technical issues with our voice calling services,” Vodafone confirmed via their status page at 11:15 BST. “Our engineers are working really hard to fix this as quickly as possible.”
EE has declared a P1 (critical) incident on their status page, promising an update by 14:30 BST. “We’re investigating a P1 incident affecting voice calls across our network,” the company stated.
Customer reports to Downdetector peaked around 11:05 BST, with EE receiving approximately 2,610 complaints and Vodafone logging roughly 1,296. Both figures have since declined to 2,034 and 669 respectively, suggesting potential improvement.
The outage appears concentrated in urban centers, with London, Manchester, and Glasgow showing the highest concentration of reports. Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) running on affected networks, including Lyca Mobile and 1pMobile, have also reported carry-over issues for their customers.
Technical analysts point to SIP-trunk provider failures as a potential root cause. Gamma, a major SIP trunk provider, has confirmed “outbound call failures to EE numbers” and logged its own P1 incident with an update expected at 17:00 BST.
For affected customers, several workarounds exist:
- Enable Wi-Fi Calling in your phone settings if supported
- Use data-based apps like WhatsApp, FaceTime, or Zoom for voice communication
- Try toggling airplane mode to force your device to re-register on the network
- Monitor official status pages: EE (status.ee.co.uk), Vodafone (vodafone.co.uk/network-status), and BT (bt.com/status)
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While Ofcom has not yet issued a statement on today’s outage, their Network and Service Resilience Guidance notes that network failures are becoming increasingly problematic as society depends more heavily on digital infrastructure. Under Ofcom regulations, customers experiencing complete service loss for more than 48 hours are entitled to automatic compensation of £8 per day.
This marks the second major network disruption this summer, following Three’s June outage which similarly affected calling capabilities across the UK. For those impacted by previous outages, individual compensation claims may still be possible.
The current disruption follows a pattern of telecommunications failures seen across different providers, similar to Cellcom’s May 2025 voice/SMS outage that affected 300,000 customers in Wisconsin.
BT and EE both promise “further updates as soon as possible” on their service status pages. Customers are advised to use alternative communication methods and check operator websites for the latest information.
