Three goes to zero as UK mobile provider suffers voice and text outage Britain's Three mobile network has suffered a major outage, with voice calls out of action and limitations on texting. The problems kicked off early on Wednesday morning, with Three originally reporting that voice services were lost, but data was still working. This was later amended to say text messages were affected too, but …
This.
A few weeks ago somebody commented about the (paraphrased) '100% network coverage in the UK', saying it's not true. Using Three in Foyles, slap bang in the middle of the West End, we're talking dial up speeds. Sort of usable for WhatsApp text messages, but that's about it.
I was in West Wales a while ago and there were areas where it was 2g( on Voda) or nothing yet they want to cut 3g... I hope that Vto oda and BT are going invest before the whole area becomes a mobile free zone.
If they don't then there will be a lot more unhappy punters than with the outage today.
Haven't been able to make or receive calls all day.
Three claim that only "a small number of text messages are being affected". So why can't they be bothered to send a text to all customers warning them that they can't make or receive voice calls? At least people would know it's not their fault and then they might be able to make alternative arrangements.
If you're on PAYG and use Three largely for incoming calls (especially in the EU, where roaming charges don't apply) you probably panic that you've lost your number because you haven't topped up or made a chargeable call recently. You wouldn't just assume the whole network has fallen over.
And now they will be 'improving' their customer service as they get onboard with Vodafone. Apparently, they are taking on Vodafone's billing and account management methods and procedures - so victims of Vodafone's customer service when billing goes awry will be pleased to know they will no longer be alone when it comes to being shafted...
My wife and I both run our mobiles via Three. Mine went out of contract earlier this year. After the previous outage and the 999 fiasco (on top of my never wanting to be a victim of Vodafone again), I resolved to take both away once my wife's account goes out of contract.
Wife's account goes out of contract in two days (Friday)...
Both numbers will be ported away. Where? Anywhere not associated with Three.
Anyone else in a similar position might want to learn from the mistake we made at the start. NEVER operate his and her mobile accounts with the same network. All it means is that if YOUR phone goes down, so does THEIRS (single point of borkage). We won't be making that mistake again...
My only regret is that their customer service structure is such that it is almost impossible to speak to a living being in order to let them know why we are leaving. Maybe that will sink in if people vote with their feet.
"NEVER operate his and her mobile accounts with the same network. All it means is that if YOUR phone goes down, so does THEIRS (single point of borkage). We won't be making that mistake again..."
My wife and I have both our main mobile contracts with Vodafone. I've been with them for >30 years and, apart from poor reception in some areas, I've not had any issues with them. I have a backup PAYG SIM from O2 in my phone, and a backup phone with a Three SIM in my car. I would use an EE SIM but all their PAYG options need monthly top-ups; my current O2 SIM still has £12 left from the £20 I started it with over 2 years ago.
My wife's backup SIM is a Lebara PAYG - not so much for the network (as it's still Vodafone) as to give her a second number for WhatsApp groups she runs for a local charity.
> NEVER operate his and her mobile accounts with the same network
We subscribe to that practice too, but it has the downside that you've got 2 single points of failure to contact each other, so it depends on whether you want to prioritise the two of you communicating with each other, or everyone else
It's always the same - "*some* text messages", "*some* of our customers *may* be experiencing", etc.
It'd be refreshing if, when these things happen as they do, they just put up a message saying "OUR NETWORK IS FSUCKED RIGHT NOW. We're trying to fix it. Apologies."
I'm on Smarty, Three's unloved stepchild, and am currently roaming. I wasn't able to make calls ("Sorry you've not been given access to this service") until I turned off VoLTE - though whether that would be a fix if you're not roaming, I'm not sure (it certainly wouldn't help if there's no 2G or 3G coverage).
I did get notified of voicemail but couldn't retrieve it, but when trying was instructed to "call from your phone and set a PIN". Needless to say, I was calling from my phone and had previously set a PIN.
Can't help feeling there are too many layers of (fragile) complexity.
It's also very annoying that incoming calls get ringing tone when the target phone won't be making a sound.
Anyone calling an elderly relative living alone might assume the worst and set off on a long and unnecessary journey, or have to disturb a keyholder or the emergency services.
Time for dozy Ofcom to set some standards.
The ringing tone you hear as the 'calling party' has it's playout or generation etc. started in anticipation of the far end actually ringing/alerting.
Back in the day of circuit-switched PSTN/ISDN etc., there weren't many delays during the different states of the call setup, and signalling propagated around pretty quickly, especially with common channel systems like SS7 and ISDN D-Channels. Latency in the signalling paths was about as good as it could get.
Once you call a phone on a mobile network, things get a lot more complicated...the network may have to locate the called party's phone from a signalling point of view, select the RAT for use (2G/3G/4G/5G-NSA/5G-SA) and then set up the 'bearer' portion of the call that actually carries the speech.
Fast forward to now, where most voicey stuff is packet based. Being packet based, it's harder to set up the 'bearer' circuits as you may be able to use packetised speech end-to-end, or you may need to use 'packet-to-TDM' via a media gateway and/or border controller etc. There are many more steps in setting up a packet-based voice call, and so many different organisations and technologys are in use that the call setup times are now a lot longer.
In particular, the interval between you sending the last digit of the number you dial and the called 'phone (or whatever device your chosen E.164 address points to!) actually ringing/alerting is now significantly longer, especially when a mobile/cellular network is involved at the terminating/called end.
With an old-school call that traverses only a TDM/Circuit-switched path, the far end would start alerting very quickly, usually near-enough-immediately after you dialed the last digit required. The call setup times can now take several seconds, meaning you won't be hearing the ringing tone for some time. Of course, this doesn't look/sound good, so...
Ringing tone is played to the calling party as early as possible to give the illusion of fast call setup and keep people happy by indicating progress in a timely fashion. Yep, tones like dialing,ringing, re-order, busy (fast and slow!) etc are collectively known as 'call progress tones'. Doing this is - of course - rather misleading and can cause trouble in meat-space. How many times has you partner taken you to task about not answering their call?
While we're on the subject of ringing tone....ever considered where it comes from in the VOIP world? Is it being played to you locally by your own phone that you are making your outgoing call from, the called network somewhere, or some gateway in the middle? The answer is all three - depending on what technology and conditions are encountered during the very complex call set up.
You have no idea how complicated some of the call scenarios get:-) IMO, a packet-switched cellular network is about the worst possible topology to transit from a call setup point of view:-)
Considering Vodafone are taking them over are just as shit. Its shocking how piss poor our reception is in the UK on all networks. My house is near the town centre but get no signal in the house. Yet I go on a cruise to Norway and in the middle of the fjords I get full 5G bars!
I go up high to the meadows and wonder along the public pathway thats between two farmer fields. You stop half way as you're outside the mobile mast for the area. Its impressive to see. But no 5G as no one has bothered to stick a 5G mast there. You walk about 500 yards or more away from it with just trees inbetween and you loose all signal!
I'm using Smarty - an MVNO of Three and according to the merger agreement - Three's priority customer;-).
The timeline of this outage is a teensy bit difficult to tie down. I had no problems until late afternoon of Wednesday when frequent, sudden outages of the network occurred spontaneously. Now on Thursday I have only been able to dial out using data.
Annoyingly symptoms of the network issues have also varied - yesterday's was shown on my phone by complete losses of network signal and frequent switching between 5G and 4G or 4G+. Obviously Three screwing around with their network and a very high likelihood that this is an inevitable part of the 3 / Vodafone merger. Conversely today's issues are invisible prior to the failure to connect and sudden voicemail notifications.
Considering the promises of a seamless switch and huge improvement afterwards: I am now beginning to question my unerring faith in the honesty of corporate announcements.
Highly disappointed and hacked off. Really hope Smarty/Three are aware they need to deliver bribes and improvements if they wish to retain happy customers!
Service still out, since Sunday afternoon, when I noticed I couldn't place calls, and twice it claimed the handset wasn't registered. Could have been problematic for long before, since voice calls route over WiFi. Three status checker lied to begin with, claiming the area/mast was just busy. Finally changed on Sunday evening to "we're busy working on a fault". Texts were getting through in storms with regular 15-20min delay, breaking 2FA for online banking. Affects town of ~8K.
Needing to bank, I tried to "chat" to support on Tue 24th, which sensibly requires name, phone number, business account number, but then an OTP texted out, which (you guessed) says "It's only valid for 3 minutes". No option to email a code. Third time was a charm. Then 26 min of useless chat, which requires providing the phone number etc. all over again, and yet another OTP. Except too many have been sent in an hour, and the first two sent by agent came with the third. Finally agent alleged mast/problem was due to be fixed on 25th. And today is 26th. Just put an ETA on the fix/status page for the postcode and stop wasting time.
Bonus points, the dullards texted a questionnaire to the lead admin on the account, who happens to be on holiday overseas and was blissfully unaware of the problems. If Three's DPO reads this comment, have a think if that is good practice, and/or breaches GDPR. I consented to giving feedback, but I didn't consent to you bothering the MD on hols - and remember I've authenticated to login to Three, I've passed the high-bar to login to the chat, I've given my details yet again to the agent and your organisation has still be dopey enough to contact an admin point instead of mobile number given.
Thankfully I've a £25 Nokia 4G dumbphone on Asda (one text every 180 day to keep the credit balance) as a backup, intentionally on non-Three, that needs charging once every 18 days. Going to have re-think that now the merger has gone through, as Asda use Vodafone.
Lets’s look at the options here;
1) Ransomware attack - OK possible, and 3 have coughed up £x million. Except it all seems to have come back up quite quickly, so seems unlikely.
2) A completely ballesd-up attempt to merge systems and it all went horribly wrong. Possible.
3) And this is my favourite, they fucked up, they made some change and all sorts happened. Now here’s the issue, who loses their job over it?
Now the point is this do Three customer bail out and go elsewhere, or stick with them and just accept that this is normal?
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