It’s the go-to mobile network for millions of people across the UK.
But it appears that Sky Mobile is having problems this morning that have left hundreds of users unable to access the internet on their smartphones.
The tech giant took to X (formerly Twitter) to confirm the issue, writing: ‘We are aware that some Sky Mobile customers are experiencing issues with their 3G/4G/5G services.
‘We are investigating the issue and we are sorry for any inconvenience this may be causing.’
On social media, customers have been left fuming over the internet provider’s ‘patchy’ service.
It’s the go-to mobile network for millions of people across the UK. But it appears that Sky Mobile is having problems this morning that have left hundreds of users unable to access the internet on their smartphones
Sky confirmed that some customers are experiencing issues with mobile internet services and says they are investigating the issue
Today’s outages follow a similar service disruption that left hundreds of users unable to access the internet for five hours earlier this week.
According to Down Detector, disruption may have begun yesterday evening as more than 200 users reported experiencing outages.
Reports dipped overnight as customers slept but have leapt back up this morning with 267 outage reports at 09:09 am BST.
The number of users experiencing issues continues to climb as the morning goes on, jumping from only 154 reports at 07:39 BST to 247 just an hour later.
On X, formerly Twitter, one enraged Sky Customer wrote: ‘Sky Mobile is down again! Such patchy service this week @SkyHelpTeam what’s going on?!?’
‘Sky Mobile is down for a second time this week. When do you expect this to be resolved please?’, asked another.
According to Down Detector, the disruption may have begun last night and has now reached more than 260 complaints of service outage by 8:28 am BST
On X, formerly Twitter, Sky customers have complained about the patchy service
Others pointed out that this is the second time Sky’s internet services have down down this week
The timing of the outage has come as a particular inconvenience for those who work from home or rely on the internet for their work.
On X, one commenter wrote: ‘Sky mobile is down in Leeds. I have a phone that won’t work for anything if I turn off my WiFI and I need to leave for work soon.’
Another added: ‘Sky Mobile is down today too so if I’m not on the work Wifi, no one can contact me!’
Of those who have reported experiencing disruption, 68 per cent reported having issues with their internet and 26 per cent said they have had issues with their mobile phone.
The issues also appear to be affecting a very small number of Sky TV customers as 5 per cent of reports on Down Detector said they have had a problem with television services.
Some customers have complained that the timing of the outage has been particularly disruptive as they prepare to begin work
Other social media users have said that no one will be able to contact them for work due to the disruption
Out of the total reported service disruptions on Down Detector 68 per cent reported issues with the internet while 26 per cent reported mobile phone issues
The service issues appear to be spread over the country, although Down Detector reports suggest that local disruption may have come at different times.
London and Manchester have been the most affected areas in the last 24 hours.
However, Manchester appeared to suffer the worst of the service disruption yesterday in the evening while London has been seeing internet services affected more this morning.
Yesterday evening, the Sky Help Team posed on X that there would be planned maintenance in the London and Kent areas between midnight and 6:00 am BST.
They wrote: ‘Due to essential maintenance some customers in the above areas may experience an intermittent/complete loss of Broadband and Talk services’.
Sky had previously announced that it would be carrying out planned maintenance in Kent and London between 00:00 and 06:00 BST
On X, some customers complained that they were still seeing outages after the end of the planned maintenance
However, some customers have reported experiencing continued disruption after the end of the planned maintenance.
Responding to Sky Help Team’s post, one customer wrote: ‘I am still having issues with my mobile network. The phone says PDP authentication Failure. What the hell is going on?!’
This follows yesterday’s extended service outages for Sky customers which affected 700 people.
Starting from 6 am BST yesterday until 11 am BST, Sky users faced a total loss of broadband service.
In this case, Sky had also announced that it would be conducting ‘essential maintenance’ leading to a loss of broadband between midnight and 6 am.
And, just the same as today’s outage, customers also complained that they were still experiencing service disruptions long after the end of the maintenance period.
EXPLAINED: THE EVOLUTION OF MOBILE BROADBAND UP TO 5G
The evolution of the G system started in 1980 with the invention of the mobile phone which allowed for analogue data to be transmitted via phone calls.
Digital came into play in 1991 with 2G and SMS and MMS capabilities were launched.
Since then, the capabilities and carrying capacity for the mobile network has increased massively.
More data can be transferred from one point to another via the mobile network quicker than ever.
5G is expected to be 100 times faster than the currently used 4G.
Whilst the jump from 3G to 4G was most beneficial for mobile browsing and working, the step to 5G will be so fast they become almost real-time.
That means mobile operations will be just as fast as office-based internet connections.
Potential uses for 5g include:
- Simultaneous translation of several languages in a party conference call
- Self-driving cars can stream movies, music and navigation information from the cloud
- A full length 8GB film can be downloaded in six seconds.
5G is expected to be so quick and efficient it is possible it could start the end of wired connections.
By the end of 2020, industry estimates claim 50 billion devices will be connected to 5G.
The evolution of from 1G to 5G. The predicted speed of 5G is more than 1Gbps – 1,000 times greater than the existing speed of 4G and could be implemented in laptops of the future
