Three down: Network tells users to “turn it off and on again”
Three has told customers affected by networking difficulties to try turning their phones “off and on again”, following widespread outage complaints.
Some Three mobile users have been unable to access basic services since Wednesday evening. This has been a nationwide issue which, Three claim, they are now well on the way to fixing.
Related: Best Phone 2019
Finally – confirmation from @ThreeUK (via our producer @edcurwen) that they’re facing an 8hr+ outage) https://t.co/KQdJh8PiIu
— Ben Thompson (@BBCBenThompson) October 17, 2019
In a statement, the mobile network told us: “Following technical difficulties with our services across voice, text and data, some customers will be experiencing an intermittent service.
“Our engineers are working to fix the issue and the service is returning to normal, and we expect it to be resolved over the course of the day. We advise our customers to turn their phones off and on or turn airplane mode on and off, which may resolve the issue.
Turn it off and on again. Remind you of anyone?
As if 3 mobile is down and someone is on bbc news telling us to switch it on airplane mode and turn off and on again – and it’s worked ?? hello IT crowd
— JOCE (@joooslyn) October 17, 2019
When contacted again by Trusted Reviews, Three didn’t offer any explanation as to quite what had gone wrong, beyond blaming “technical difficulties”.
Thankfully though, they have provided the following update: “For the majority of customers, the network has been restored so they can make calls, send texts and use data. We are aware that some customers are still experiencing issues and our engineers are continuing to work to fix this.”
Anyway, try turning it off and on again. Or try switching airplane mode on for a while and then switching it off. Some customers are already finding that it works.
If that doesn’t work, then stay tuned. Three are expected services to be back up and running properly by the end of the day. They’ve also Tweeted the following, in an attempt to comfort network users: “We’re currently experiencing technical difficulties with voice, text and data, meaning some of you will be experiencing intermittent service. please accept our apologies, we’re sorting this out right now. check back here [Twitter/@ThreeUK] for updates.”
Three described the events, on Twitter, as “not our best day,” and will hope the outage doesn’t put customers off in an increasingly competitive mobile network marketplace.
They’re not the only mobile network to embarrass themselves in the last week though, Vodafone recently wrongly sent some shocking roaming bills to customers, as we reported on Monday.
Related: Vodafone overcharged you? It’s ‘looking’ at compensation options
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
