Customers say Three mobile outage preventing 999 calls

Customers of the mobile network, Three, have told the BBC they cannot make 999 calls, as the network faces a significant outage.

The firm has apologised after more than ten thousand people told outage tracker Downdetector they were unable to make or receive phone calls on Thursday.

The BBC has been told by members of the public that 999 calls will not connect from their devices using the Three network. The BBC has not been able to independently verify their claims.

Three told the BBC it was “investigating this urgently”, adding that data from emergency services showed the “majority” of 999 calls were being “connected via other networks”.

There have also been several thousand reports from users of Smarty and ID Mobile – smaller mobile companies which use Three’s network.

Three’s support team has been telling customers that it does not “have a timeframe” for a fix, but that the firm is “working hard to resolve this as soon as possible”.

In a statement, Three said the company is “aware of a number of reports that customers have not been able to connect to 999 calls”.

“We are taking this very seriously and are investigating this urgently and we apologise if anyone has been unable to successfully contact emergency services.

The company also said in an update that “data from the emergency services shows normal volumes of 999 calls being placed via our network are being connected”.

It told customers: “While it is likely your call will connect correctly to 999, if you have any issues please try another network or landline. Please do not try and test 999 calls from your device as it may prevent genuine calls being answered quickly.”

In an earlier statement, Three had said that people were still able to use mobile data services and make 999 calls during the outage, though multiple people had told the BBC that was not the case for them.

Three has around 10.5m customers across the UK, according to its website, but it is unclear how many of them are affected by the outages.

Many people on social media have shared their frustration at the outage and described the disruption they said it had caused them.

One person claimed, external they had “missed a medical appointment” as a result of being unable to receive calls, while another said, external the issues had left their daughter “stranded”.

And several people have claimed, external they would be leaving the network altogether.

In a statement the regulator Ofcom said: “We are aware that Three is experiencing problems with its network. We are in contact with Three to establish the scale and cause of the problem as soon as possible.”

It is not known whether customers will be able to claim compensation for the outage, although according to the Ofcom website it “may be appropriate” for providers to offer refunds “while repairs are being made”.

It comes a month after the UK regulator gave the go-ahead for Three to merge with former rival Vodafone in a £16.5bn deal.

It comes the same day a major outage affected artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT.