Service almost fully restored after tens of thousands affected by broadband and phone network failure

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The telecoms giant BT has apologised after tens of thousands of customers had their broadband temporarily cut off.



The internet provider’s broadband and phone network went down across much of the UK on Tuesday, with customers reporting failures in London, Birmingham, Coventry, Sheffield and Glasgow.

A BT spokesman confirmed the problem, but said there was no evidence so far of it being the result of a malicious attack. Rival TalkTalk’s computers were hacked in October in what was originally feared to be a raid on customers’ personal data.

The BT spokesman said: “Large numbers of customers have been experiencing temporary issues with their broadband services this afternoon. Customers can still receive and make calls as normal.

“We’ve been working hard to fix the issue and are glad to report that nearly every customer affected is now reconnected, approximately two hours after the problem started. We apologise to any affected customers for the inconvenience.

Customers around the UK reported problems with their internet and landlines on social media.

Stewart Armstrong (@FuzzyGolf) Root cause of #BTdown identified pic.twitter.com/4syG3Zz9aO

Janey Godley (@JaneyGodley) dear BT have you tried turning your server off for ten seconds then back on ? #btdown @BTCare

sara flay (@SaraFlay) No internet !!!! It's like the end of the world has happened #btdown #Carmarthen

Down detector, a website that monitors service failures, reported more than 18,000 outages in 24 hours.

The BT website went down temporarily and the website of Openreach, a subsidiary of BT Group that builds and maintains the copper and fibre network, remained down until mid-afternoon.

On Monday, BT reported a rise in pre-tax profits of 24% to £862m in the third quarter to 31 December 2015. The company also recorded its best revenue growth for more than seven years – up 3% to £4.5bn over the same period.

It came as the group announced a shakeup of the structure of the business after its £12.5bn takeover of mobile operator EE.