London attacks: Please don't use your mobile

Vodafone, the UK's largest mobile operator, is asking users to keep off their phones following the terrorist attacks in London this morning.

A Vodafone spokeswoman told silicon.com the company is asking its customers to avoid making calls into the capital and for London-based users to reduce their phone usage.

"Customers are being asked to keep calls to a minimum," she said. "We're tying to free up capacity in London for the emergency services." If possible, users are asked to only use their mobiles for 999 calls.

Users of all networks have been experiencing outages as a result of higher call volumes following the explosions.

Vodafone's spokeswoman said the operator had seen calls peak for about 40 minutes today at around 11:00(BST).

"Things are getting slightly better," she said. "There's obviously quite a lot of work going on."