topic Unable to make or receive voice calls on three mobile in Account and services

Unable to make or receive voice calls on three mobile

tiresias21 — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 15:43:50 GMT

I have a three mobile PAYG SIM for occasional use that has worked fine for maybe 4-5 years.

Today it will not make or receive voice calls although it will send and receive text messages.

When I make a call the usual "calling..." message appears but it gives up after 20 secs or so. The called party's phone does not ring or display any messages.

If I try to ring my phone from ANOTHER phone, it displays the "calling" message but MY phone does not ring or display any messages; the other phone eventually gets an announcement that my phone number is unavailable and to leave a voice message.

The last call I made was early November and it was working fine, so something has gone wrong since then.

I can't even ring 333 from the phone to get to customer services, so I tried ringing from another phone but there was nothing in the menu system that fitted my problem. I also tried the online chat but that just went round in circles and eventually said it would pass me to a team .... but then just cut me off!

I also registered for a mythree account and managed to log in. It was showing a fairly low balance, so I topped it up just in case. But the problem still exists. There is nothing in the mythree menus that shows any problems or error messages.

I am at my wits end.

The PAYG account must still be active because it can send and receive texts OK and its voice message recording seems to record attempted incoming calls.

How can I get through to someone at Three to fix this?

Re: Unable to make or receive voice calls on three mobile

Paddiewack — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 15:50:52 GMT

Use the live chat function. You may need to connect to WiFi if you have no available data allowance.

Re: Unable to make or receive voice calls on three mobile

tiresias21 — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 16:04:51 GMT

As I said, I have already used the live chat but it just kept going round in circles, dropping back to a more general question about what type of service it was. Eventually it said it was passing me on to a team (can't remember the name of it) and said "checking availablity" then after a minute or so it disconnected the chat. Completely useless. 😞

Re: Unable to make or receive voice calls on three mobile

Paddiewack — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 16:11:21 GMT

Apologies yes I see you did say that but chat is your only option on payg so you’ll need to try again. As a fellow customer I’m aware that it’s a pain and that’s putting a good slant on it.

Re: Unable to make or receive voice calls on three mobile

tiresias21 — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 17:06:05 GMT

Thanks for the replies.

Tried live chat again - after the third attempt of going round in circles, I actually got through to someone real. Phew!

So as we know, three have been switching off 3G. It seems that although my phone (Moto G7 Plus) that I'm using on this number is 4G compatible, it also must be VoLTE compatible to make voice calls over 4G - without that you only have 4G data (no voice) which apparently give the mysterious symptoms I described when trying to make or receive a voice call. No helpful error messages. 😞

So if you know someone who has a pre 4G phone and is looking for one to replace it (due to 3G being switched off), don't just look for "4G compatible" - make sure it is VoLTE compatible too.

Re: Unable to make or receive voice calls on three mobile

tiresias21 — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 17:09:06 GMT

... forgot to mention - I tried the SIM in my pixel 8 phone and it worked fine. So now I'll have to look for a cheap replacement phone that does VoLTE.

Re: Unable to make or receive voice calls on three mobile

Paddiewack — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 17:09:39 GMT

Thanks for the information and I’m glad you at least know what the issue is.