BT EE Outages Cause Chaos Across UK as Thousands Struggle to Make Calls
A major BT EE outage brought widespread disruption across the UK on Thursday, leaving thousands of mobile and landline customers unable to make or receive calls.
It kicked off mid-morning. Reports started flooding in at around 11:15am, according to Downdetector, a website that tracks online and network issues. The situation escalated quickly. By 2:15pm, the number of complaints from EE users had surged past 2,600.
The outage wasn’t localised. From Glasgow to the South Coast, the problem stretched across the country. London, Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds saw the most affected users. But no region appeared completely spared.
Social media lit up. Customers vented frustrations about being unable to contact family, clients, or even EE’s own customer service line. Landlines were down too for some.
A BT spokesperson said: “We’re currently addressing an issue impacting our services. We apologise for any inconvenience caused; we’re working urgently to fix this issue and will provide a further update as soon as possible.”
Despite the disruption, emergency services remained reachable. EE confirmed that 999 calls were still functioning normally for mobile users.
Some users also reported trouble with Vodafone and Three. But Vodafone, which now owns Three, insisted its services were fully operational. It’s likely the complaints came from users trying to reach people on EE.
To put the scale in perspective: EE, owned by BT since 2016, serves about 25 million UK customers. The wider BT Group? Over 30 million. Their annual revenue? A hefty £20.4 billion for the year ending March 2025.
While the cause of Thursday’s outage hasn’t been officially confirmed, the response has been swift. Engineers were reportedly deployed as BT and EE scrambled to restore normal service.
Customers are still waiting for a full explanation. For now, the only certainty is disruption and frustration for millions across the UK.
