Sky Mobile has been DISABLED: An outage has left hundreds of frustrated customers unable to use the internet on their smartphones
- Sky Mobile has confirmed that customers are experiencing internet issues
- 3G, 4G and 5G services affected since 6am BST this morning
It is the mobile network of choice for millions of people in the UK.
But it appears Sky Mobile is experiencing issues this morning that has left hundreds of users unable to access the internet on their smartphones.
The tech giant turned to X (formerly Twitter) to confirm the issue, writing: ‘We are aware that some Sky Mobile customers are experiencing issues with their 3G/4G/5G services.
“We are investigating the issue and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”
Customers are furious on social media about the internet provider’s ‘patchy’ service.
It is the mobile network of choice for millions of people in the UK. But it appears Sky Mobile is experiencing issues this morning that has left hundreds of users unable to access the internet on their smartphones
Sky confirmed that some customers are experiencing problems with mobile internet services and said they are investigating the issue
Today’s outages follow a similar service disruption that left hundreds of users unable to access the internet for five hours earlier this week.
According to Down Detector, the disruption may have started last night as more than 200 users reported experiencing outages.
Reports dropped overnight as customers slept, but have risen again this morning with 273 outage reports at 09:09 BST.
The number of users experiencing problems continues to rise as the morning progresses, from just 154 reports at 07:39 BST to 247 just an hour later.
On X, formerly Twitter, Sky Customer wrote angrily: ‘Sky Mobile is offline again! What patchy service this week @SkyHelpTeam, what’s going on?!?’
Sky Mobile is offline for the second time this week. When do you expect this to be resolved?,” another asked.
According to Down Detector, the disruption may have started last night and has now reached more than 260 service disruption complaints as of 8.28am BST.
On X, formerly Twitter, Sky customers have complained about the patchy service
Others pointed out that this is the second time Sky’s internet services have been cut this week
The timing of the outage poses a particular inconvenience to those who work from home or rely on the Internet for their work.
On X, a commenter wrote: ‘Sky mobile is offline in Leeds. I have a phone that stops working when I turn off my WiFi and I have to go to work soon.”
Another added: ‘Sky Mobile is also offline today so if I’m not on WiFi at work no one can contact me!’
Of those who reported experiencing disruptions, 68 percent said they had problems with their internet and 26 percent said they had problems with their mobile phones.
The problems also appear to be affecting a very small number of Sky TV customers, as 5 percent of reports on Down Detector say they have had a problem with television services.
Some customers have complained that the timing of the outage was particularly disruptive as they prepared to start work
Other social media users have said no one can contact them for work due to the disruption
Of the total service outages reported on Down Detector, 68 percent reported internet issues, while 26 percent reported cell phone issues
The service problems appear to be spreading across the country, although reports from Down Detector suggest the local disruption may have occurred at different times.
London and Manchester have been the worst affected areas in the past 24 hours.
However, Manchester appeared to bear the brunt of the service disruption last night, while in London internet services were hit harder this morning.
This follows yesterday’s extensive service disruptions for Sky customers, which affected 700 people.
From 6am BST yesterday until 11am BST, Sky users faced a total loss of broadband services.
Sky had announced it would be carrying out ‘essential maintenance’, which would result in an ‘intermittent or complete loss of broadband’ between midnight and 6am.
However, many customers reported that they continued to experience service issues long after the scheduled outages.
EXPLAINED: THE EVOLUTION FROM MOBILE BROADBAND TO 5G
The evolution of the G-System began in 1980 with the invention of the mobile telephone, which allowed analog data to be transmitted via telephone calls.
Digital came into the picture in 1991 with the launch of 2G and SMS and MMS options.
Since then, the possibilities and carrying capacity of the mobile network have increased enormously.
The mobile network allows more data to be transferred from one point to another faster than ever.
It is expected that 5G will be 100 times faster than the currently used 4G.
While the jump from 3G to 4G was most beneficial for mobile browsing and working, the move to 5G will be so fast that it will become almost real-time.
This means that mobile operations will be as fast as internet connections in the office.
Possible applications for 5G include:
- Simultaneous translation of multiple languages during a group conference
- Self-driving cars can stream movies, music and navigation information from the cloud
- An entire 8GB movie can be downloaded in six seconds.
5G is expected to be so fast and efficient that it could potentially herald the end of wired connections.
According to industry estimates, 50 billion devices will be connected to 5G by the end of 2020.
The evolution from 1G to 5G. The predicted speed of 5G is over 1Gbps – 1000 times faster than the existing speed of 4G and could be implemented in laptops of the future