Three UK is refusing to declare an outage over APN issues

[CeAr0000]

We all know from the forum that hundreds of people are having an issue where many many websites (like dropbox.com, ring.com , and others) stop loading when using the 3Internet APN. We also know that using a VPN works, and that switching APN to three.co.uk works as a fix, but there are some tradeoffs since the latter uses CGNAT.

I have complained, escalated, and complained again and today I had a call with a technical team representative. Three UK has not declared any outage - the fact that this forum is full of hundreds of reports, and no doubt their support channels are full of thousands of reports, has not triggered any internal process to address a systemic problem. It's been two weeks now.

Since this cannot be unintentional, I think that something smells here and they are acting dishonestly. I encourage everyone to ask for a deadlock on their complaint and escalate to the Communications Ombudsman (I did) so they have enough data points to sanction Three's behaviour.

I also highlight that there seems to be a known fix, documented by many users (in particular here), that support can apply. All my Three Support representatives refused to do so, with one saying "I do not understand what you are talking about". Given the magnitude of the issue, again they should simply apply the fix to every single account, and the fact that they are not doing it is a serious breach of contract and good faith.

[clivejo]

Just in addition and for context, I live close to the border in Northern Ireland.  Last night I was thrown off 3 UK and ended up roaming on eir (network in Republic of Ireland).  My router logged the hand over and I was given a public IP address from the 3internet APN via the eir network!

When I looked up the IP address, it showed:

inetnum: 92.41.0.0 - 92.41.251.255
netname: H3GUK
descr: Mobile Broadband Service
country: GB
admin-c: HURa1-RIPE
tech-c: HURa1-RIPE
status: ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by: H3GUK-MNT
created: 2008-06-30T06:12:37Z
last-modified: 2013-10-28T14:20:15Z
source: RIPE

However, when I reconnected back on 3 UK again, the same '3internet' APN gives me a private 10.131.51.* IP address and the connection is being NAT'ed!  I think this issue is affecting only certain masts.

[clivejo]

Sorry but the Communications Ombudsman are a waste of time (bar that they charge Three ~ £150 for every case raised with them).  You think the so called Network Technicians are as thick as two short planks, well the Ombudsman are worse.  Three will deny there is a problem, offer cancellation of your contract as the resolution and case closed. I find it sickening that if the roles are reversed that we would be charged to buy ourselves out of the contract, yet when Three breach it, they can just walk away!

I have raised two tickets now with the "Network Geniuses", being told I had to wait for 7 days for them to respond and they keep closing the ticket saying nothing is wrong.

I will open a case with the Ombudsman as well, but won't be holding my breath for them getting it fixed.

This has happened to me before over the years, first time in 2023:

https://community.three.co.uk/t5/Network/Three-Network-issues-since-the-1st-December-2023/m-p/22946

There was a massive data outage on the Three network which hit the national news, and few days later the issue fixed itself 😕  

I have also noticed that ever since the Vodafone/Three merger was announced the "Network Support" team seems to have gone down the toilet.  They have absolutely no understanding of the network and just read from computer screen.  Please turn it off and on again, please reset the wifi box, Please try the SIM in another device, Please do whatever daft non-sense they can think off to waste your time and fob you off with absolute lies and non-sense!

[CeAr0000]

Not quite. First, them charging Three £150 is precisely the reason why every single one of us should escalate. Secondly, we have evidence that a solution exists and Three is refusing to implement it - this is breach of contract, and calls for compensation.

[clivejo]

Had a missed call from the so called "Network Technical Team", again my ticket has been closed and they say it is fixed!!  Tried to reopen it again and they now say that they can't do that because the case has been escalated to the CEO team.  I don't think the Network Technicians have any training whatsoever, they don't even know what the purpose of '3internet' is!

[clivejo]

@CeAr0000 I had a call from Ombudsman today and asked if we could link cases, but was told that they can only deal with each case separately and it is treated as a Complaint.  I asked the case worker if they knew anything about Networking etc and she said they only deal with how Three deal with the complaint and have no power to look into the technical side of things.  She did however say that Ofcom are the regulator and we should file reports with them regarding the technical issues.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/service-quality/broadband-landline-faults

Under the section, Compensation & Complaints > Tell Ofcom there is a link to a report form.

The more people who report the same issue, the more chance we got of Ofcom looking into it. 

My report to Ofcom:

Subject : 3internet not working correctly

"The '3internet' APN historically assigns my router a public IP address so that I can have full access to and from the internet. From the end of September 2025 it stopped handing out a public IP and now assigns a private IP address and the connection is being NAT'ed. I have reported this to Three on numerous occasions and they refuse to even acknowledge the issue, never mind fix it. There are reports of the exact same behaviour on Three's own community forums and 3rd party forums discussing it in detail, so I know it's not my equipment or configuration at fault. Please contact me if you have any further questions or need evident of the issue."

[CeAr0000]

Thanks, I will file a complaint with Ofcom as soon as the Ombudsman finds I'm right. 

[clivejo]

Has your case been looked at yet?  It was my case worker that advised to put the report in to Ofcom.  My case work was clear they will not make a decision on the rights or wrong of technical information, just on how Three handle the complaint about it.

[clivejo]

Only got around to finally submitting my case to Ombudsman, as I thought I needed a "deadlock letter" from Three, but they will apparently accept the email saying Three aren't able to reach an agreed resolution and my complaint has been closed.  At this point I have several "complaints" which all have been open and closed again without any interaction from me!  This seems to be the result of what the "Network Technicians" call escalations!  I consider escalation of a Network Issue would be to refer the case to a more senior and maybe an actual "Network Technician" who knows the difference in a public and private IP address!

My case number is CM100384-25 if you want to add it to yours as evidence of another customer experiencing the same issue with the '3internet' APN

Would you post your ref number as I can link mine?

[CeAr0000]

CM099038-25