Vodafone is finally back online following a seven hour outage that left thousands without internet.
According to Down Detector, the problems started at around 08:29 BST and affected users across the country.
Hotspots were in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Cardiff, although social media users in other locations also complained of problems.
A Vodafone spokesperson said: ‘We have now fixed the issue impacting just over 1% of our home broadband customers today.
‘Customers should already be seeing their connectivity return. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience to anyone impacted today, and can confirm this was an isolated incident.’
Vodafone is finally back online following a seven hour outage that left thousands without internet
While the issue started at around 08:30, Vodafone waited until 11:00 to issue a statement on the outage.
This read: ‘We’re aware of and investigating an issue impacting some of our home broadband customers since this morning.
‘Getting our customers reconnected is now our top priority, and we’re incredibly sorry for any inconvenience this is causing.’
Several frustrated users took to Twitter to discuss the outage.
One user said: ‘Is #vodafone home broadband down for you as well? Getting green lights in #w12 #London but no connection…’
While the issue started at around 08:30, Vodafone waited until 11:00 to issue a statement on the outage
Social media users said that they could connect to their routers, but were unable to get an internet connection
Another added: ‘At least Vodafone is consistently the worst. internet is down.. again.’
Vodafone initially responded to complaints by advising customers to use their ‘self serve area’ to ‘diagnose and service any issues’ themselves.
However many said this was unhelpful as there appeared to be a nationwide problem.
One user said: ‘Read the room.
‘Country wide issues and multiple reports of your online tools not working.
‘By all means, keep firing the same response out.’
Last week, rival provider Virgin Media suffered a similar five hour outage that left thousands of Britons unable to access the internet.
Down Detector gets network status updates from various sources including social media and reports submitted to its website.
The network problems come just after news that Vodafone is set to finalise a merger with its rival Three within weeks.
Talks between FTSE 100 giant Vodafone and Three’s owner, CK Hutchison – led by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-Shing – have been going on for more than six months.
The networks hope that a combination of their UK operations could help them to compete with their rivals in the roll-out of 5G.
Hotspots were in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Cardiff, but social media users in other locations also complained of problems
‘By combining our businesses, Vodafone UK and Three UK will gain the necessary scale to be able to accelerate the rollout of full 5G in the UK and expand broadband connectivity to rural communities and small businesses,’ Vodafone said in an update to shareholders.
Vodafone would own 51 per cent of the new business, and Mr Hutchison would take the rest.
In 2021, Virgin Media and O2’s £31 billion merger was given the green light by the UK’s competition watchdog.
The outage also comes a few months after Vodafone launched new cost-of-living packages for households and small businesses.
A social broadband tariff gives households connectivity for £12 a month, and the tech giant gives small businesses free broadband for a year.
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If you’re thinking about switching, a new report could come in handy, as Which? has revealed the best and word broadband providers in the UK
