Is Three down? UK users report several hours of outages
Many Three customers experienced across-the-board issues this morning
UPDATE: Normal service has resumed, and Three has apologised for the outage on Twitter. No technical explanation is forthcoming.
Three has confirmed that it experienced technical difficulties this morning that affected customers across the UK. For several hours, the entire Three network was unavailable: Users reported being unable to take or make calls, send or receive messages or access the internet.
Even the Three website went down for “essential maintenance.” The error message – which is still showing – explains that the site will be “up and running soon”, and directs users to Three’s online store; the embedded link somewhat confusingly sends users to the exact same error page in a sort of infinite loop of frustration.
Three admitted on Twitter that it was experiencing “technical difficulties with voice, text and data”, and warned that some users might be suffering with “intermittent service.” The company has not confirmed the extent of the issue, although it has since provided an update.
Many customers report having first noticed the outage late last night. A glance at outage detection site DownDetector, moreover, confirms that the issue affected a large swathe of the UK and Northern Ireland from around midnight on 17 October until 9am in the morning, at which point reports began to decrease in quantity.
It was originally thought to be a device-specific issue: the official Three UK support Twitter account has been responding to user reports since earlier this morning with instructions to pass on the postcode of the affected area and the specific make/model of handset.
Until a couple of hours ago, Three had not issued any further statements since it partially acknowledged the problem on Twitter. In typical fashion, it was left to the good people of the internet to fill the silence, which many did by requesting refunds or having a good whinge about the lack of communication and general severity of the outage.
At the time of writing, however, this Three customer is experiencing normal service, and Three has issued a formal apology on Twitter.