O2 down – Mobile network leaves thousands of customers unable to make or receive calls
Angry customers complained on Twitter that they were disconnected
MOBILE operator O2 had a network outage this afternoon, leaving thousands of customers unable to make or receive phone calls.
Angry phone users took to Twitter to complain they were disconnected after the network went down.
Hundreds on Twitter said they could not make any calls or receive any - although the mobile phone network has millions of customers in the UK so it only affected a small number of them.
At the peak of the outage, there were 2,161 reports of problems with the network - but that has now climbed down to only a handful of complaints, according to .
Some also complained they could not text or receive messages.
A spokesman for O2 said that the problem is now believed to be fixed but the operator is investigating what caused the outage.
Reports of problems with O2's network began at 4.13pm before being fixed shortly before 6pm, according to Down Detector.
O2 said the network issues lasted for 40 minutes, and only affected parts of the UK.
A spokesman said customers should now be able to use their phones as normal.
The outage appeared to affect customers in London and the surrounding area mostly.
An O2 spokesman said: "Some customers may have experienced an issue when using their mobile earlier today. This was fixed within 40 minutes.
"Some customers may continue to experience some intermittent issues when reconnecting to the network.
"We’re investigating what happened and apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused."
Reports also came in from Birmingham, Manchester, Exeter, Hull, Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Belfast.
Tesco, Sky Mobile, Lycamobile and Giffgaff all use O2's network but there were far fewer reports of problems with those operators.
Kel wrote on Down Detector: "Can’t make or receive phone calls. Unable to contact O2, constantly being disconnected."
Lisa Marie added: "I am in Middlesbrough and I can't make or receive calls, can't log into my account, access the coverage and network service status or speak to a guru as keep getting error messages on O2 website.
"I am still able to send and receive text messages and my phone shows that I have full signal still."
The latest outage comes two week after Storm Ali left Sky and O2 mobile customers without service.
It affected customers in parts of Northern Ireland, east Central Scotland and North East England.
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