Thousands unable to make calls as EE and BT networks down

A network outage affecting thousands of EE and BT customers has been resolved, a spokesperson has said.

Customers reported they were unable to make or receive calls as the mobile phone and landline networks faced an outage.

Some customers reported issues with making 999 calls, but the government said these had “now been restored”.

A spokesperson from BT, which owns EE, apologised for the outage and said it has “resolved the problem and the service is running as normal”.

The spokesperson said late on Thursday the issue happened “following a technical fault impacting voice services on our network earlier today”.

Outages tracker Downdetector, which relies on self-reported user data, showed over 2,500 EE customers experiencing outages at 14:00 BST, with many also reporting issues with other networks.

Vodafone and Three confirmed to the BBC that they did not have network issues.

Other networks had seen spikes in reports of outages on Downdetector – but these were likely to be customers from networks unable to connect to EE or BT phone numbers.

Social media users had been posting about a loss of services of both EE and BT mobile and landline services.

BT said customers should use 999 as normal.

However, on Thursday afternoon, Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Services posted on social media to say there was “a fault with the mobile phone network, including 999 calls”.

But they posted an update at 15:01 BST on X to say 999 calls had returned to normal.

South Western Ambulance Service then posted on X to confirm there was an issue.

The Department of Science, Innovation and Technology said the outage had “impacted some customers’ ability to make and receive calls between EE and other networks.

“EE and BT digital voice calls to 999 have now been restored.”

A spokesperson added: “Communications providers have statutory obligations to ensure their networks and services are appropriately resilient.”

EE and BT customer service phone lines were currently down for much of Thursday afternoon.

One customer posted on an EE forum to say they could not access the help line to arrange an “urgent refund,” while another was unable to get through on behalf of their elderly parents, who made an order with EE.

The UK communications regulator Ofcom said it was in contact with BT “to establish the scale and cause of the problem as soon as possible”.

“Mobile networks and landlines are vital to reach essential and emergency services, it’s important for customers to be reconnected as soon as possible – and kept up to date with developments,” said Ernest Doku, Uswitch mobiles expert.

“If your landline stops working, you will be entitled to compensation if it has not been fixed within two days, but make sure to report the issue to your provider as soon as it happens,” he said.

The issue may have also impacted some customers of mobile phone operators which “piggyback” on EE’s network, with 1pMobile saying it was aware of some issues “affecting a small number of customers”.

“We apologise for any inconvenience caused and the EE network engineers are working on the issue currently,” it said.

Lyca Mobile and Spusu have been contacted for comment.

BT Group has more than 30 million customers in the UK and made £20.4bn revenue in the last financial year.