Downdetector, a service that monitors broadband providers, noted that at 8am this morning, there had been a surge of almost 28,000 reports. At the time of writing, reports have fallen but customers are still noting outages.

The cause of the disruption has not been reported but it is thought to have started at around 1am this morning.

Virgin Media said: “We’re aware of an issue that is affecting broadband services for Virgin Media customers as well as our contact centres.

“Our teams are currently working to identify and fix the problem as quickly as possible and we apologise to those customers affected.”

Twitter storm

Social media has been flooded by complaints. And Twitter has been ablaze with angry customers bemoaning the service.

One tweeted: “Virgin Media has been having serious nationwide issues since about 1am and still hasn’t issued any communications or apologies. That alone is unforgivable. Will not be using them again when I move house soon.”

While another said: “It seems to me that all Virgin Media customers should receive compensation in the amount of one month of free internet at least due to internet outages.”

Compensation is unlikely to be forthcoming, given the companies own terms and conditions state the following:

“Here’s how much we’ll credit you for the following service issues: £9.33 per day for a total loss of service after two full working days from registering the loss of service to us.”

Services issues aside, Virgin Media has recently come under fire for announcing that would raise its prices by an average of 13.8% from this month.