Image credit: newsroom.bt
The UK’s communications regulator has opened investigations into BT’s EE and Three UK following two major summer outages that disrupted mobile voice calls — including, for some customers, attempts to reach emergency services.
In an update published on Monday, Ofcom said it is investigating whether the companies complied with rules designed to keep public communications networks resilient and to reduce the impact of major service failures.
What happened on EE and Three?
Ofcom said BT notified the regulator of a software issue that caused a UK-wide disruption to mobile call services interconnecting to and from the EE network on 24–25 July 2025. During the incident, some customers were unable to make or receive calls to other networks — and some had difficulty contacting emergency services.
Separately, Three notified Ofcom of an incident that resulted in a UK-wide disruption to call services on 25 June 2025, including customers’ ability to contact emergency services.
Reporting from Reuters said Ofcom will assess whether the providers took appropriate measures to prevent these failures and to reduce their impact when disruption occurred.
What is Ofcom investigating?
Ofcom’s probes focus on whether each company had proportionate safeguards in place to maintain network availability and whether it acted appropriately to mitigate harm once the outages began. While outages can have many causes, regulators typically scrutinize incidents that affect basic voice calling — especially where emergency access is impacted.
What happens next?
Ofcom investigations can take weeks or months, depending on complexity and evidence. If the regulator finds breaches of its rules, it may take enforcement action, which can include directions to improve processes and, in some cases, financial penalties.
BT has said it will cooperate with the investigation and has apologised for the disruption, according to Reuters. Three has also notified Ofcom about its incident; further details are expected as the investigation progresses.
What should customers do if they were affected?
- Check your network’s service-status pages and any official updates shared by the provider.
- If you experienced a prolonged loss of service or financial impact, log dates/times and contact customer support to ask about remedies.
- If you’re dissatisfied with the handling of a complaint, you can ask your provider how to escalate it through the UK’s independent dispute resolution route.
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