Vodafone outage recap — network 'recovering' after mass UK outage
Problems struck one of the UK's biggest networks on Monday, October 13
Network and web page both seem to be MIA
Having held a quick poll of TG UK’s staffers, we have one confirmed report of a Voxi customer (one of Vodafone’s sub-brands) being unable to access mobile data. Add that to the pile visible on Down Detector’s Vodafone page.
Concerningly, I can’t access Vodafone UK’s website either. Hopefully this is due to a sudden increase in traffic flooding the servers, as if it’s down due to the same issue that is afflicting the network, this could be a big problem.
Three and easy
Vodafone recently completed a merger with Three, another mainstay of the UK’s carrier market. But whatever integration has happened since then doesn’t seem to apply to all their infrastructure, as Three users are not reporting outages in nearly the same quantities. There's still been a spike, but the raw numbers are nowhere near close to Vodafone's.
All Three users on TG’s staff are still connecting to the internet, which is a good sign that the problem is localised. Not that this is much comfort for Vodafone’s own customers.
Bad news for Lebara and Talkmobile users too
Similar to the issue with Voxi, Lebara and Talkmobile users are also impacted by Vodafone's outage as it piggybacks off of the same network as an MVNO.
Lebara's identity as a carrier is all about calls abroad to keep in contact with distant family members, while Talkmobile focuses on well-priced SIM-only contracts. But it seems nobody's going to be enjoying their international calls or competitively priced SIMs for the forseeable, as the Down Detector report graphs above show.
The word from Vodafone HQ
In a statement given to our friends at TechRadar , a Vodafone spokesperson says of the outage:
"We are aware of a major issue on our network currently affecting broadband, 4G and 5G services. We appreciate our customers' patience while we work to resolve this as soon as possible.”
We've asked for a statement too, in case Vodafone has anything more to say since the last update. But this is the best we have for now.
Vodafone: ex-X user (or ex-Twitter user, if you prefer)
Normally in times like this, a company's social media is the ideal place to look for information about what's happened and when the outage may be over. But sadly Vodafone doesn't seem to be that chatty online.
Vodafone seems to have abandoned its X profile since March this year, other than a single post in July about a problem with its customer service. The carrier is similarly quiet on Bluesky, and nothing has appeared on Instagram, Threads or Facebook yet either.
Stable - but not yet fixed
Returning to the Vodafone Down Detector page, we can see that complaints of levelled off - having sat at around 30,000 complaints for the past hour or so.
Without further confirmation from Vodafone about a timeline for fixing whatever problem has happened, this drop off isn't really good news. But hopefully it means that the vast majority of impacted users are now aware of the problem, and can now take steps to connect to the internet via other means.
Some good news?
While the Vodafone site itself has been down, I've been refreshing the Talkmobile status page (who use Vodafone's network) to see if I can find answers. And while it's been dead for the past hour or so, it's suddenly sprung back to life, saying that, at least in the area surrounding TG's London office, connectivity's OK for both 4G and 5G.
Whether this applies to Vodafone and other carriers' customers, users in other areas, or is even accurate in the first place, is not clear. But it's encouraging to see all the same.
Are you entitled to compensation?
According to Sabrina Hoque, a telecoms expert at Uswitch, customers may be entitled to compensation as a result of an outage like this one.
“If your broadband connection goes down for more than two days, you could be entitled to compensation of £9.76 for each calendar day that the service is not repaired," she told Tom's Guide in a statement. “Ofcom advises that compensation for mobile signal outages is ‘dependent on the circumstances.’ But in extreme cases where repairs take much longer, you may be entitled to an additional refund or account credit."
Although this outage has been going for over two hours now, it's pretty unlikely Vodafone won't have it fixed by Thursday.
Reports continue to decline
Some positive news is that, according to DownDetector at least, reports of issues are falling quickly. At time of writing, it's down to under 10,000 reports and I'm hearing anecdotal evidence that some people have their broadband and mobile signal back up and running.
No such luck for the Vodafone network status checker, though. That's still failing to load. So we're not out of the woods yet...
Vodafone says the network is "recovering"
According to an updated statement provided to the BBC, Vodafone says the issue is resolved and the network is "recovering".
"This afternoon the Vodafone network had an issue affecting broadband, 4G and 5G services," a company spokesperson said.
"2G voice calls and SMS messaging were unaffected and the network is now recovering.
"We apologise for any inconvenience this caused our customers."
Reports falling fast and Vodafone's website is back
The latest reports on DownDetector are continuing to fall precipitously and it looks like Vodafone's own website — which was knocked offline for most of the outage — is now back up and running.
It looks like, for most of us, the outage could be coming to an end.
Just keep in touch!
I'm crossing my fingers that the worst of this outage is behind us. But it doesn't remove the fact that Vodafone's been a little to quiet about this whole thing.
As handy as it is for a company to talk to the press (so we can then pass the news on to you), the expectation these days is that consumers can be directly addressed via social media when there's a problem. And Vodafone hasn't done so. Something to think about next time, guys!
Vodafone's partner brands recover
After peaking 1,017, 2,251 and 2,395 hourly reports respectively, Talkmobile, Lebara and Voxi users seem to be doing alright again, according to the latest Down Detector figures.
This does not mean there are zero issues remaining with these networks. But it's another encouraging sign.
A further update from Vodafone
Here's the latest we have from a Vodafone spokesperson:
“This afternoon, for a short time, the Vodafone network had an issue affecting broadband, 4G and 5G services. 2G voice calls and SMS messaging were unaffected and the network is now recovering. We apologise for any inconvenience this caused our customers.”
Five hours in...
As the day draws to a close, here's how things look on Down Detector for Vodafone, roughly five hours after all the trouble began.
The complaints from users still haven't completely disappeared, not dropping significantly since about 6pm UK time. Hopefully anyone still facing trouble will find themselves reconnected soon enough.
Cause of the outage revealed
The following day on from the major Vodafone outage and it looks like all has been resolved for both the mobile and broadband networks. Vodafone has provided an updated statement, explaining that the cause of the issue was a non-malicious software issue from one of its partners.
Here's the full statement, from a company spokesperson:
“On Monday afternoon, for a short time, the Vodafone network had an issue affecting broadband, 4G and 5G services. This was triggered by a non-malicious software issue with one of our vendor partners which has now been resolved, and the network has fully recovered. We apologise for any inconvenience this caused our customers.”
