Thousands of EE and BT customers have reported encountering problems when making or receiving calls, as a result of a widespread mobile network outage.
Reports of problems with EE, as well as its parent company BT, were first logged by users at 11.15am on Thursday morning on the website Downdetector, which monitors internet outages.
The reports peaked at about 2.15pm, when more than 2,600 EE customers reported being unable to access the mobile network.
The outage affected customers across the UK, from Glasgow to the south coast of England, according to a map of reports on Downdetector, with people in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds reporting the most problems.
Meanwhile, EE and BT customers posted on social media that they were unable to make or receive calls on mobiles and landlines, and could not get through to EE’s customer service number.
A BT spokesperson said: “We’re currently addressing an issue impacting our services. We apologise for any inconvenience caused; we’re working urgently to fix this issue and will provide a further update as soon as possible.”
The Guardian understands that voice services were affected, but EE customers were able to call 999 as normal if required.
Hundreds of users reported problems with other mobile networks. However Vodafone, which also owns the network Three, said there were no problems with its networks.
There were spikes of reports of outages at Vodafone and Three on Downdetector. However users may have reported problems if they were unable to contact EE customers.
EE, which was bought by BT in 2016, has about 25 million customers in the UK. The entire BT Group has more than 30 million UK customers and reported total revenue of £20.4bn in the year to March 2025.
