Virgin Media customers report internet outages

The outages started just after 17:00 on Monday

Tens of thousands of Virgin Media customers across Britain reported problems in using their broadband internet and TV connections on Monday due to a series of intermittent outages.

The outages started just after 17:00 on Monday, and by 17:20 outage tracking website Downdetector had recorded more than 40,000 reports.

The site showed that the problems affected users all across the UK.

Many users reported that their broadband service resumed shortly after the outage, but many others said that they were still facing issues nearly an hour later.

As the intermittent outages continued for several hours, affected users started posting messages on Twitter and other social networking websites about their broadband problems.

One user commented: "Who tripped over the plug that goes to the UK at Virgin Media? Entire country down."

Another user posted: "Virgin Media seem to be having a bad time… even the website has gone down".

Some customers also reported that they were unable to access the company's service status checker website, which lets customers to verify whether their service is down, and when it might come back.

Virgin Media eventually responded to the complaints on Twitter, saying that their technical teams were "investigating an intermittent broadband issue".

"While services are currently back up and running, our teams are looking into the problem and will work flat out to fix it," it said. "We apologise for any inconvenience caused."

The company said the outage had nothing to do with network overload caused by high demand amid the Covid-19 lockdown.

Many users reported that outages continued into the night. By 21:30, a live map on Downdetector suggested that most outages at that time were in the southern region of the country.

This is not the first time that thousands of Virgin Media customers have experienced issues in accessing their internet service.

Last year, the company was named the worst internet service provider (ISP) in the UK for outages by Consumers' Association ‘Which?'. In the study, TalkTalk finished runner-up to Virgin Media, with one-in-ten customers being left with no internet connection for long periods.

Virgin Media was formed in 2006 out of the mergers of the UK's various local cable companies. In 2013, it was acquired by Global for £15 billion.