BT outage cuts off smart devices

The issue affected Amazon Alexa speakers, Ring doorbells and other devices.

BT internet appears to have had an outage yesterday (Monday 31st October), with customers complaints filling social media.

Users experienced specific issues with certain apps and smart devices, including Amazon Alexa speakers, Ring video doorbell systems and PlayStation Network (PSN), which all seemed to be related to issues with BT.

Down Detector, a website that monitors the availability of several online services, revealed a string of issues affecting a number of these platforms. Although it was unclear if all of those complaints were related to the BT issues, they seem to have started around the same time.

Ring said the issue lied with the ISP and not with Ring's systems.

Oddly, internet connections did not seem to be impacted; it was only gadgets and certain apps that experienced issues.

Customers took to Twitter to complain.

"Ring Doorbell completely down over here in the UK," one user said.

"Internet provider is BT and no other issues with anything else, but ring is not working. The app doesn't say anything about any issues, which I believe it should especially if you know there are issues."

A BT spokesperson said: "We're aware that some BT broadband customers are unable to connect to some 3rd party applications. We're currently investigating this."

The problem was resolved later in the day, with BT apologising for the inconvenience - although providing no details on the cause of the problem.

The outage comes days after another significant outage in the Shetland Islands left people without phone, broadband, and mobile services last month.

The island, which has a population of around 23,000, suffered a complete outage, impacting its connectivity.

BT said a 'break' in a third-party undersea cable linking Shetland to the Scottish mainland caused the interruption.

Instagram also experienced some technical issues yesterday, and stopped functioning properly for many users globally. However, this appears to have been unrelated to BT.

Some users claimed that their accounts had been locked, while others said they had received notification that their accounts had been suspended.

Users who received the notification message uploaded screenshots of it on Twitter, creating a buzz on the micro-blogging platform.

Later, Instagram owner Meta clarified there had been a technical issue and that it had not taken any mass banning action, which some users were afraid of.