Three network down - as it happened: Latest news as mobile provider hints at way to fix signal and internet after it stops working

Three Mobile stops working for customers across UK

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 have WiFi 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 Independent has contacted Three for more information.

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Key Points

• Problems affecting entire country
• Reports of issues rapidly rising
• Three account sends sassy tweets about coverage problems
• But also admits there is an issue hitting 'some users'

[17 October 2019 08:07 · Jon Sharman]

Welcome to The Independent's live coverage of the nationwide Three mobile service outage.

[17 October 2019 08:08 · Jon Sharman]

Here's our story on what we know so far (which isn't much):

[17 October 2019 08:11 · Jon Sharman]

The customer support team on Twitter has replied to its first complaint, but users aren't happy.

A customer had complained they were unable to validate their email address.

[17 October 2019 08:12 · Jon Sharman]

Not everyone is furious about the outage, however.

[17 October 2019 08:21 · Jon Sharman]

Some Three users appear to be able to access broadband.

[17 October 2019 08:24 · Andrew Griffin]

Three's Twitter account is still suggesting that it is a problem with individual users' phones or SIM cards – which doesn't seem to line up with the fact that the issue is being reported all across the country, all at the same time.

[17 October 2019 08:25 · Andrew Griffin]

Reports of issues are rising rapidly, according to the site Down Detector. (Though that might just be a consequence of people waking up and realising their phones have stopped working.) 

[17 October 2019 08:31 · Andrew Griffin]

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.

[17 October 2019 08:32 · Andrew Griffin]

Issues seen across entire country

The issue is happening basically everywhere, according to Down Detector.

[17 October 2019 08:36 · Andrew Griffin]

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: