Customers across the UK experienced mobile connectivity problems after a technical fault affected EE, one of the country’s largest mobile networks.
Initial reports of the disruption surfaced around midday, primarily from Vodafone customers. Users logged issues on Downdetector, a popular outage-tracking site, and shared their experiences on social media. While Vodafone maintained that its own network was operating normally, some of its customers were unable to connect calls to EE numbers.
EE acknowledged the problem, stating: “We’re aware that some of our mobile customers are unable to make or receive calls from a Vodafone number. We’re working quickly to resolve this and we’re very sorry for any inconvenience caused.” The carrier clarified that calls to other networks, mobile data and text messaging were not affected, isolating the disruption to calls between EE and certain Vodafone users.
The conflicting messages from the two operators added to public confusion. Vodafone said the issue originated within EE’s systems and affected customers who had previously ported their numbers away from EE. A Vodafone spokesperson said: “Some of our customers have been impacted by an issue with the EE network. This meant some customers were unable to connect calls to EE numbers, and the issue also affected customers who’ve previously transferred their number from EE to Vodafone.”
Technically, the problem involved number porting. Numbers that were originally issued by EE but later transferred to other providers—including Vodafone, Three and O2—still retained identifying digits that caused calls to be routed via EE’s infrastructure. That misrouting meant calls could fail when attempting to cross between networks, even though users could generally call within their current provider.
Reports of issues persisted into the evening on social platforms from customers of both Vodafone and EE. As usual, the number of reports declined overnight, then rose again the following morning, although the renewed spike did not reach the intensity of the previous day’s peak.
(Photo by Thom Holmes on Unsplash)
Related coverage: Vodafone and Ericsson have been trialling 5G network slicing for mobile gaming, a separate development in the UK mobile landscape.
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