BT network suffers major internet outage around UK

BT Group's broadband and landline network has been hit by a wide-scale outage across several locations around the UK on Tuesday afternoon.

According to the downdetector.co.uk website, which monitors internet failures, the outage hit cities including London, Birmingham, Sheffield and Coventry, with a peak of around 18,000 customers experiencing the outtage across the country.

Several other ISP use the BT infrastructure, including Sky and TalkTalk, which also saw spikes in outages around the same time but on a much smaller scale.

BT, which last week completed the £12.5bn takeover of the EE mobile network, released a statement via Twitter that said: "Sorry if you are experiencing network problems. Engineers are on site now. We will keep you updated."

Several IT firms contacted the Register website, including a managed service provider that said most clients had fallen off its monitoring platform, with service status showing dozens of exchanges being impacted.

Another wrote: "BT Infinity is experiencing a massive outage at the moment. Connections are still established but no data is arriving from BT."

On Monday BT released a strong set of third quarter results, with profit before tax up 24% to £862m, and year to date profit up 18% to £2.14bn as it restructures with the EE acquisition into new organisational structure with six lines of business – Consumer, EE, Business and Public Sector, Global Services, Wholesale and Ventures, Openreach.

The company, which captured 71% of all new broadband subscriptions in the UK during the most quarter, plans to build on the EE takeover to develop ‘hybrid infrastructure’ comprising fixed and mobile networks that it says will offer customers “constant connectivity”.