Vodafone Blames Software Issue for Major UK Outage

Vodafone has confirmed the cause of a massive internet outage that left customers across the UK without broadband or mobile data on Monday—and it wasn’t a cyber attack. Instead, the company says a “non-malicious software issue” from one of its vendor partners triggered the blackout, which knocked out broadband, 4G, and 5G services for hours.

The issue began around 2pm, with over 130,000 reports flooding Downdetector by 4pm. Some customers reported they couldn’t even access Vodafone’s website or speak to customer service. Cloudflare Radar noted that Vodafone traffic “dropped to zero,” and users on social media were quick to voice their frustration. The outage even disrupted Vodafone’s own status-checking page, leaving customers in the dark about what was going on.

It wasn’t just Vodafone’s direct customers affected. Users of Voxi, Lebara, and Talkmobile—all of which rely on Vodafone’s network—also lost access.

In a statement issued Tuesday, Vodafone said: “The Vodafone network had an issue affecting broadband, 4G and 5G services. This was triggered by a non-malicious software issue with one of our vendor partners which has now been resolved, and the network has fully recovered.” They added: “We apologise for any inconvenience this caused our customers.”

Despite the issue being fixed relatively quickly, many customers were left asking about compensation. One X user warned: “We all better get some compensation or I'll be cancelling my contract.” Another questioned, “Are they paying any compensation to those affected? This outage must have had major effects on ordinary people/business.”

According to telecoms expert Sabrina Hoque, users could be eligible for £9.76 per day of lost broadband—but only if it lasted more than two days. For mobile outages, compensation depends on the specific circumstances.

Melanie Pizzey, CEO of the Global Payroll Alliance, warned that Vodafone may still be in hot water: “The company could face a wave of compensation claims from affected customers and businesses, particularly if financial losses or missed deadlines can be directly linked to the downtime.” She said that, despite the quick resolution, the incident still caused “significant disruption,” especially for businesses relying on Vodafone services for daily operations.

Daniel Card, a cyber expert from BCS, noted that the outage highlights the importance of strong digital resilience and the need for rapid response teams: “Having teams capable of diagnosing and responding rapidly to network failures is key to maintaining public trust.”

And as the dust has settled, a new issue popped up: scammers. One user reported receiving a fake call from someone pretending to be from Vodafone, urging them to download an app to claim compensation. “Who knows how many people they [are] scamming as we speak?” they warned.

Vodafone, which has over 18 million customers in the UK, is also currently in the process of merging with rival network Three—a move that’s likely to come under even more scrutiny following Monday’s chaos. While the network is now back online, the fallout from the outage—both in public trust and potential compensation—may linger much longer.