Outrage As Two Million People Forced To Look Up From Their Phones For Once

THE Three Network has apologised to its mobile phone customers for an outage yesterday, which forced 2 million people to look up from their devices for once.

It is understood the issue mainly affected former O2 customers, which recently transferred over to 3 Ireland as part of the mobile operators’ merger.

“I was on Facebook when I realised my news feed wasn’t refreshing,” recalled John Harte, a long-time customer. “Next thing I knew I was sitting at a dinner table with this woman and some teenagers. They looked very similar to the family members I had in my phone, so I just went along with it and began communicating with them. It was weird at first because I had to verbally say ‘like’ every time they said something that pleased me”.

Thousands of more customers reported similar incidents, with some having to resort to interact with strangers on buses and trains.

“I actually had to ask some guy on the train if his signal was down,” explained Tracey Phelan, who was left stranded on the DART to Malahide yesterday evening by the mobile provider. “He said yes and started banging his phone off his head in desperation. Other passengers even resorted to reading the advertising in the carriage. We eventually had no choice but to pull the emergency cord to stop the train”.

A Three spokesperson told WWN today this morning that the company was very sorry for the outage yesterday, but would not be compensating victims.

Hospitals across the country have reported a large increase in the number of people admitting themselves with “neck problems”, stating that the sudden change in posture can cause temporary stiffness in the upper-back region.

“People are just not used to looking up from their phones,” Dr. Taylor Martin from St. Vincents spinal clinic told WWN yesterday. “We urge people to rest their heads until the mobile service is back up and running again”.

Three has since confirmed their entire network is now back online.