All of the UK's major mobile operators are reporting issues just as more people are asked to work from home.

The UK government has stepped up measures this week to help limit the spread of the COVID-19 virus and now wants any household in which anyone has displayed any flu-like symptoms to isolate for 14 days. Given we're in the season of standard colds and flus, that's a lot of households.

Fortunately, most modern businesses have now set up remote working practices. Anyone who feels well enough can help to ensure the world keeps turning as it battles this global crisis.

Remote working is often now more possible than ever because of the connectivity options available. Of course, that’s when they’re available.

Millions of people found they were unable to make calls from around the start of the working day at 9am this morning across O2, EE, Vodafone, Three, Virgin Media, Tesco Mobile, GiffGaff, and BT.

In a statement, a spokesman for EE said: “A technical incident with equipment that connects the UK's mobile networks together has caused some customers to have problems making phone calls today.”

The first issues were reported to Down Detector around 9:14am and continued until nearly 2pm. 

The problem was blamed on "interconnect issues" between the operators and not a direct result of the increase in home working resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.

O2 was initially blamed for the issue but the operator denied the accusation and said it was a "cross-industry issue".

Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and sharing their use-cases? Attend the co-located IoT Tech Expo, Blockchain Expo, AI & Big Data Expo, Cyber Security & Cloud Expo and 5G Expo World Series with upcoming events in Silicon Valley, London and Amsterdam and explore the future of enterprise technology.