Your support helps us to tell the story Read more Support Now From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story. The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it. Your support makes all the difference. Read more
Several major phone networks in the UK appear to be down following a major outage.
BT, EE, Three and Vodafone were all suffering issues on Thursday afternoon, according to Downdetector.
Millions of customers are unable to make or receive calls, with many taking to social media to report the problem.
“I can’t make or receive any calls,” one EE user wrote on X. “All I get is beep beep.”
A Vodafone user wrote: “I can’t get through to my dad.”
A spokesperson for Vodafone said the network is experiencing difficulties.
“We're really sorry, but due to some technical issues some customers will be experiencing issues making or receiving calls,” the spokesperson said.
“We know how important it is for you to have this working and we're working really hard to fix this as soon as possible.”
A representative for EE told several users on X that it is “looking into” the issue.
Outage map for EE ( DownDetector )
A map showing reports of EE outage reports made to DownDetector suggests that those in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow are the worst affected.
Some O2 customers reported issues, however a spokesperson for the company said that its network is operating “entirely as normal” today.
“The only reason behind the small spike on Down Detector – which is significantly smaller than other providers – is simply due to issues some of our customers might experience trying to contact friends or family who are with operators which are experiencing issues today,” the O2 spokesperson told The Independent. “It’s not an issue with our network.”