Three UK investigating wifi call issue after reports of 999 connection failures

24 January 2025, 09:34

The Three logo displayed on a smartphone
UK mobile phone networks stock. Picture: PA

The mobile operator also warned customers to expect disruption on Friday as Storm Eowyn hits the UK.

Mobile operator Three UK has said its services have “almost returned to normal” following an issue with users making calls on Thursday, adding it is continuing to investigate reports some people were unable to make 999 calls.

The company said it is now “urgently investigating” an issue its monitoring team had picked up with calls connected through wifi following the outage.

In a statement, the company said it had seen a “normal volume of 999 calls” be connected on Thursday, and its internal monitoring said the service is “working fully” on Friday, but it is investigating reports from some users that they had failed to be connected when trying to dial 999.

The operator also warned customers they could experience further service issues on Friday as Storm Eowyn hits the UK and Ireland.

In a statement on X, Three UK said: “Following an issue affecting voice calls yesterday, services have almost returned to normal overnight.

“Our monitoring has picked up an issue with calls connected via WiFI which we’re investigating urgently.

“Today, we also expect to see an additional impact on our service due to Storm Eowyn in some areas.

“We’ve deployed extra engineering resources & planning for these areas, so we can bring sites that are impacted back online as soon as it’s safe to do so.

“A normal volume of 999 calls were connected yesterday and monitoring confirms the service is working fully this morning. We continue to investigate the small number of reports we received about 999 call failures.

“We apologise sincerely for the inconvenience caused by the issues on our voice network.”

On Thursday, DownDetector, a website that monitors outages, showed more than 10,000 people reported problems from around 1pm.

By Press Association

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