After a number of complaints to mobile network operators were made by local residents, Ofcom, the government body responsible for parcelling up bandwidths and licencing them to users has stepped in to investigate the outage. As one of the largest users of radio and data bandwidth in the country, the Ministry of Defence is a key working partner of Ofcom and this unannounced interference could indicate the usage of radio equipment not authorised for use in the United Kingdom.
The Plymouth Herald reports the experiences of local residents, including one local business owner who telephoned 'EE' customer service to complain and was told the outage was down to "war games". The unnamed man told the paper: "At first I didn't believe them," he said. "It is just about the best excuse I've heard in 30 years of working in the city.