Vodafone has gone down in a major outage.
Users reported their internet and phone network had stopped working on Monday afternoon.
The company is yet to give any update on the problems – and its official status checker appears to be broken, presumably because of the technical issues.
But tracking website Down Detector showed a huge number of reports from affected users on Monday afternoon.
Network appears to be recovering
18:29 , Andrew GriffinVodafone appears to be coming back online – at least for some, in some places. The number of reports on tracking website Down Detector is also falling, suggesting that fewer people are running into problems.
Probably not a cyber attack – but it was big
18:28 , Andrew GriffinThis comment from a security expert makes clear that the outage was probably not a cyber attack – but it is big nonetheless.
Daniel Card, a cyber expert with BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT said: “Incidents like this are often caused by a technical fault or configuration error rather than a major cyber-attack, so until more details are confirmed it’s best not to speculate. What we can see is that Vodafone UK’s network traffic has effectively dropped to zero, suggesting a significant connectivity issue. It’s not yet clear whether their DNS or routing systems are accessible outside Vodafone’s own network, and even their online status page is currently offline.
“That said, events like this underline just how critical strong digital resilience and cyber skills are, not only for telecoms providers but across every sector. Having teams capable of diagnosing and responding rapidly to network failures is key to maintaining public trust and keeping the UK’s digital infrastructure running smoothly.”
Vodafone outage heads into its third hour
16:58 , Andrew GriffinReports of problems started around 3pm UK. It’s now roughly 5pm, and users are still reporting that their internet connections are completely down.
Vodafone says it aware of problems in statement
16:34 , Andrew GriffinVodafone is aware of the problems and working to fix them, it has said. It has also confirmed that the issues are affecting both its home broadband and mobile internet services.
"We are aware of a major issue on our network currently affecting broadband, 4G and 5G services,” a spokesperson has said. "We appreciate our customers' patience while we work to resolve this as soon as possible."
Problems reported right across the country
16:26 , Andrew GriffinThe Vodafone problems do not appear to be centred in one particular area. As can be seen in this map, from tracking website Down Detector, the hotspots are all across the UK.
Official network status checker goes down
16:10 , Andrew GriffinVodafone does offer a website for checking its network status. But the page appears not to be working, presumably either because of the technical problems or because they have led to a huge amount of interest.
You can find it here. (It seems to be loading, but spottily.)
Hello and welcome...
16:02 , Andrew Griffin.... to The Independent’s live coverage of the major outage at Vodafone.
