Phone giants in crisis talks as networks crash

MOBILE phone networks went into meltdown yesterday as millions of workers stayed at home.

People were left unable to make calls or get messages while others complained about calls being cut off.

All four of the UK’s major networks – O2, EE, Vodafone and Three – went down at around 9am.

Customers from other networks including BT, Virgin, Tesco Mobile and GiffGaff also had problems.

O2, Three, Vodafone and EE each said the issues originated in equipment that connects the different mobile networks together.

The companies later held an urgent meeting in a bid to ensure the problem does not happen again.

A spokesman for EE said: “A technical incident with equipment that connects the UK’s mobile networks together has caused some customers to have problems making phone calls.

“Data was not affected and emergency 999 calls were completed successfully.” O2 added: “The industry experienced an issue that meant some calls between different networks were unable to connect.

“At a time when the country needs connectivity most, it is important we work together rather than pointing fingers before facts have been determined.”

The alarm was raised yesterday morning when O2 said it was aware of a problem with its “voice services” and apologised to customers. The outage was quickly spotted by users, with many going to network status monitoring website Down Detector, as well as social media.

Hotel proprietor Sue Cressman said she had a long journey planned to go to help her mother.

She wrote: “What a nightmare. Business to run, working from home, elderly sick relatives to attend to and this happens.”

Yesterday a poll said just 37 per cent of office workers believe their employers are ready for home working.