Three‘s UK mobile network has been down for several hours, pushing users on to social media to complain – if they are lucky enough to haveWiFi service.
Details on what caused the outage were not immediately available as Three’s website is also down, and its Twitter accounts silent early on Thursday morning.
The Independenthas contacted Three for more information.
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Official Three tweets prompts more than 1, 000 replies
Three’s tweet – the only one it has sent publicly, in which it acknowledged problems and apologized for them – has now attracted more than 1, 000 replies. Almost all of them are very angry.
Problems subside, but Three still silent
The issues are still gradually subsiding, according to Down Detector.
But the official account is yet to tweet.
Three account still yet to report that problem has been fixed
The official tweet from Three’s account had advised users to “check back here for updates”, but it has not posted publicly since.
Numerous people say the problems are being fixed but it is yet to say so.
Three still tweeting to apologize for problems
The official Three account is still suggesting there are problems, even as they seem to subside. Here’s the latest tweet – though they are being posted out to different people all the time.
Reports of issues continue to fall
There are a good number of people still reporting problems, but the number has definitely started to fall. This chart, from Down Detector, looks good for anyone struggling to get onto the internet.
Three network coming back
My phone, which is on Three in London, has finally started connecting to the internet, and a colleague is seeing the same thing . It seems a little slow (but then Three can sometimes be a little slow.)
At a more reliably data-driven level, the number of reports on Downdetector continues to tumble:
Apology tweet receives furious reaction
Three’s tweet – the first public admission there was a problem – was posted 20 minutes ago and has now received more than 400 replies. They largely look like this:
Issues could be resolving
The number of reports going in to outage tracking website Down Detector appear to have started falling. That could mean that the network is coming back online. But it could also mean that people are tired of complaining …
Official account suggests using other people’s phones as a hotspot
As it continues to respond to complaints about the outage, one Three representative has suggested using someone else’s phone – presumably one on another network – as a hotspot, to get on the internet.
Official tweet prompts furious reaction
That post has not gone down well: more than 200 replies in the first 10 minutes it’s been up.
Most are complaining about the fact that it took so long to acknowledge the fault – it’s been nearly half a day since the issues started – and taking issue with the fact that the tweet describes the problems as leading to “intermittent service”, when plenty of people are complaining that it is simply not working at all.
Three finally publicly acknowledges issues
The main Three UK account has finally sent a public tweet, acknowledging the outage.
Three continues to blame phones and SIMs
That said, the account is still telling some people who complain that the issue could be with their phone:
Reports of problems rapidly rising
The number of reports of problems continues to rapidly rise on Down Detector. (Though, again, that might be because most people have been asleep.)
Outage reminiscent of O2 issues
The issue is reminiscent of the great O2 outage of December 2018. That was eventually traced to a software update, and the phone network blamed another company.
You can relive that here:
Three account sends strange sassy tweets featuring GIFs
The Three support account is still sending sassy tweets:
And denying the issue is network-wide, suggesting instead that it’s an issue with people’s phones:
Issues seen across entire country
The issue is happening basically everywhere, according to Down Detector.
Three support account replies to customers
The Three Support account has started replying to affected customers, but only directly. Neither the official account or the dedicated support account have tweeted publicly about the issue at all.
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