Vodafone Admits 'major Outage' as More Than 130,000 Report Problems

Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago

rstreefland

66 points

19 comments

bbc.co.ukTechstory

calmnegative

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Vodafone OutageTelecom InfrastructureNetwork Reliability

Key topics

Vodafone Outage

Telecom Infrastructure

Network Reliability

Vodafone experienced a major outage affecting over 130,000 users, causing widespread disruptions to broadband and mobile services, with discussions highlighting the importance of network redundancy and backup options.

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01Story posted
Oct 13, 2025 at 11:03 AM EDT
3 months ago
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Oct 13, 2025 at 11:41 AM EDT
37m after posting
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Oct 14, 2025 at 6:30 AM EDT
3 months ago
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Discussion (19 comments)

Showing 19 comments

cph123

3 months ago

1 reply

It looks like the number of IPv4 /24s their ASN was announcing has dropped significantly: https://radar.cloudflare.com/routing/as5378#announced-ip-add...

gorgoiler

3 months ago

My first thought was that they’d accidentally broken their BGP announcements, cutting themselves off. I don’t know enough about this topic though: are you saying there’s evidence they just stopped announcing their networks for no real reason, or is this graph a symptom of someone being something else being wrong, as opposed to being the root fault?

Latitude7973

3 months ago

3 replies

This completely stymied me - joining a meeting while WFH: broadband goes down, can't use the SIM in my computer, can't tether to my phone as they are all using Vodafone.

messe

3 months ago

That's one of the reasons I kept my Irish SIM even after I got my Danish one. I've found it useful on plenty of occasions to switch to the other, especially when traveling.

rawling

3 months ago

I could tether to my (non Vodafone) phone, but my work laptop refused to connect to the WiFi hotspot until I physically unplugged the ethernet cable from the dock. "You can't connect to another network while you're on your employer's network." I'm not!

rozenmd

3 months ago

I had a similar event a few months back, I now have separate providers for my SIM and home internet.

You pay more, but the redundancy is worth it imo

rjh29

3 months ago

1 reply

With 5GB sims costing £2-5/month it is well worth buying a backup sim if this matters to you. I pay for two sims in two countries and was able to use the other's roaming data when Vodafone went down.

alastairr

3 months ago

1 reply

I'm not sure that would necessarily have helped. My regular sim was on another network (giff gaff), that was down. Went out and bought a pay-and-go sim on yet another network (EE) - no dice there either. Not sure what the issue was, but it seemed to have knock-on impacts in areas like mine that were affected.

rjh29

3 months ago

2 replies

giff gaff is O2 and O2 shares a parent company with Vodafone (Virgin Media O2) and also shares masts. EE and Three probably share infrastructure too, particularly in rural areas.

At least for me, Three was definitely working (South West)

ChocolateGod

3 months ago

Vodafone is not owned by Virgin Media O2.

alastairr

3 months ago

Vodafone & O2 / VM are separate entities I think. In fact, 3 is being merged into Vodafone. Regardless, hard to know how to have a good backup, maybe starlink ;)

quenix

3 months ago

1 reply

This was quite catastrophic - everything was down, even nationwide mobile data for Vodafone users (and piggybacking MVNOs). I hope we get more info or a postmortem.

It also had spillover effects on other providers — O2 service was degraded

traceroute66

3 months ago

> I hope we get more info or a postmortem.

You're a funny one.

Have you experienced how impossible it is to get decent tech support out of Vodafone these days ? So chances of a postmortem ?

octo888

3 months ago

1 reply

Wonder if it's anything to do with the in-progress merging with Three?

I've noticed my MVNO Vodafone service, which was faultless, suddenly declining. Random dropouts are fairly common, no connection inside some big buildings (whereas Vodafone's infrastructure is known for being better inside and Three's much worse. Makes me think I'm being shunted onto Three's infrastructure)

EmptyCoffeeCup

3 months ago

I also use an MVNO service.

I have a horrible feeling that 3 traffic is being prioritised over Vodafone MVNO traffic, leading to service deg.

End of the day, I was on Vodafone's network for a reason - it was the least congested in my area. 3 was crap. If I’m suddenly fighting for bandwidth with 3 customers because of this merger I will have to try EE (o2 is known garbage around here; 2 mbps at most thanks to traffic management).

Ofcom should never have allowed it - the UK does not need reduced competition in this space.

gbuk2013

3 months ago

Everything was down: broadband, their website and even their support phone numbers. Talk about putting all the eggs in one basket! :)

gavin_gee

3 months ago

anything to do with the massive DDOS attacks that Krebs has been reporting against US carriers?

stillworks

3 months ago

Seems to have recovered now

nasretdinov

3 months ago

I feel validated for having 4 (four) different provider options (personal + work phones, my cable, and neighbour's Wi-Fi :))

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ID: 45569108Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 12:41:39 PM

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