Vodafone UK massive outage hits mobile, broadband customers

Tens of thousands of Vodafone customers across the UK were hit by a major service outage on Monday, October 13, affecting both home broadband and mobile connectivity.

The widespread disruption began in the afternoon with reports flooding the outage monitoring website Downdetector peaking at over 135,000 complaints within a short time.

The vast majority of reports concerned problems with landline broadband, though a significant number of customers also lost access to 4G and 5G mobile internet and reported having no mobile signal to make calls.

The problems were reported in major cities including London, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, and Glasgow.

The outage was so severe that Vodafone’s official website, app, and customer service phone lines were also reportedly inaccessible for a period, adding to customer frustration.

Vodafone confirmed it was aware of the widespread issues and worked to restore services. The company later issued an apology stating that connectivity was starting to return late on Monday afternoon.

In an initial statement, the company said:

“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.”

In a later update, as the network began to recover, the spokesperson added:

“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.”

While services were largely restored, some customers reported lingering issues with slower speeds and intermittent connections. No official cause for the outage has been confirmed, though it is not believed to be related to a cyber-attack.