Three UK is down – here’s everything we know about the outage

ID Mobile and Smarty also hit

Several UK mobile networks – including ID Mobile and Smarty – also use Three’s infrastructure, which means their voice calls have also been taken out by today’s issues.

I’m on Smarty and can’t currently make calls, while the Downdetector reports from ID Mobile customers have spiked this morning. A small chink of light is that those reports have slightly dropped in the last ten minutes – which either suggests a potential easing of issues, or that most ID Mobile customers have already reported their frustrations.

The Three UK spike has also fallen slightly, so let’s hope it continues in that direction…

It’s another big outage

The Downdetector reports are continuing to rise – and that makes this Three UK outage similar in size to the one back in January 2025, when voice calls were also taken out.

The Three UK issues in January nudged the 10,000-report mark on Downdetector, so today’s one isn’t quite there yet, but it’s not far off with the number at over 9,000 at the time of writing.

The bad news is that last time the outage lasted for several hours, going into the following day – so hopefully Three’s engineers can find a fix a bit quicker this time.

A statement from Three UK

I’ve just heard back from Three UK. A spokesperson said: “We are aware of an issue affecting voice services and are working hard to fix it. Data services are working normally. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.”

There’s no estimate of a time for the fix unfortunately, but you’re not alone – there are UK-wide issues affecting Three UK voice calls. The silver lining is that data services haven’t been taken down too, but hopefully those voice calls will be back sooner rather than later.

An ‘ongoing issue’ affecting voice calls

While it isn’t a direct statement from Three UK, when I checked its coverage tracker I found the notice above – it states that “there is an ongoing issues affecting a small percentage of voice services and we are working hard to fix it”.

It adds that “data services are unaffected”. Worryingly, it also adds that “we are aware of a number of reports that customers have not been able to connect to 999 calls”.

It’s not clear whether this is a boilerplate statement from the previous Three outage, but I’ve contacted the network to find out and will update this liveblog as soon as I hear back.

The reports are rising

This is starting to feel like another sizable outage for Three UK, even if the issues do seem to mostly be restricted to voice calls.

The reports on Downdetector have grown to over 7,000 at the time of writing and social media is filling up with reports from confused Three customers wondering why they can’t make calls.

While the problems have been reported across the UK, it doesn’t look like everyone is affected. On the TechRadar team, some Three customers are reporting that both mobile data and voice calls are fine (for now), as is Three’s fixed wireless broadband.

I’m on Smarty though (which is on the Three network) and can’t currently make voice calls…

Voice calls are the main issue

The Downdetector reports show that ‘voice call’ is the most common issue this morning on Three UK – and that’s backed up by anecdotal comments on the likes of X.

Many customers say that they can’t make voice calls, with error messages stating that their phones “couldn’t connect” to the network. This is also the case on related networks like ID Mobile.

Some Three UK users say they can still use mobile data, but voice calls are down. The Downdetector reports are continuing to spike, so this seems that another UK-wide outage.

A pretty big spike for Three

Not a great start to the day for Three UK customers, or indeed those on related networks like Smarty and ID Mobile.

Downdetector is showing a big spike in reports from Three users, which is currently at over 5,000 reports. That isn’t quite as high as the network’s voice calling outage back in January, but it isn’t far off – so hopefully there’ll be a fix before it snowballs any further.

I’ve contacted Three for comment and will update this liveblog as soon as I hear back.