EE down: 4G, data and phone calls not working as users complain about service

Network told people to keep trying

EE has stopped working for some of its customers, leaving them without the ability to use data to make phone calls.

Hundreds of users complained to the company that their phone service seemed to have stopped working.

EE said the issue was only affecting those who were trying to make phone calls while connected to 4G, and asked them to keep trying.

"We’re aware that a small number of customers are unable to make some calls over 4G," EE's official Twitter account posted to the many users who complained.

"We’re doing our best to fix this quickly. Please keep retrying, and we apologise for any inconvenience. WiFi calling, as well as text and data services, are not affected."

The EE account was replying to multiple messages per minute from users complaining about their coverage, though stressing to each of them that they should simply keep trying to make the network work.

“EE is the biggest network in the country so this outage has the potential to affect a huge number of people," said Ru Bhikha from uSwitch.

“EE is generally highly regarded for its reliability, consistently ranking low in Ofcom’s complaints data, and we all accept that things can go wrong - it is how networks respond that is the real test. EE needs to get on the front foot quickly, or risk customers frustration growing among its large customer base."

The outage comes after Ofcom unveiled that phone companies will give broadband and landline customers free refunds for network outages. Such a scheme is not in place for mobile networks, but carriers may still opt to offer refunds for network issues.