Virgin Media down: Broadband outage hits thousands working from home
Virgin Media appeared to suffer an outage this morning, leaving thousands of customers working remotely without broadband.
The broadband operator had not acknowledged the issue by 10.15am on Twitter despite a flood of angry complaints from customers.
Downdetector, a website that records outages by tracking social media mentions, registered a surge of complaints of Virgin Media issues from 9.43am.
It tracked almost 10,000 complaints by 10.14am with the entirety of London appearing to be affected.
A Virgin Media spokesperson said: “We’re aware that some customers in parts of London are experiencing an issue with their broadband. We are working as quickly as possible to restore services and apologise to those affected.”
The company only addressed the outage on Twitter at 1.30pm. It explained the nature of the fault meant customers could connect to their routers, but would still be without internet.
We’re aware that some customers in parts of London are experiencing an issue with their broadband. This means that, while affected customers may still be connected to their Virgin Media router, they will not have Internet access so web pages and other services will not load.
Virgin Media
Londoners express anger over Virgin Media outage
City PM understands the outage is not nationwide, but limited to parts of the capital.
But one customer, Jayne, said she was experiencing problems in Solihull.
“Down in Solihull too, working from home is fun been tethered to my phone on teams calls all day!!! It’s a nightmare!”
Paulius B tweeted Virgin Media to say: “Broadband not working in London for the past hour. People need to work from home, unacceptable. Sort your house out.”
And Chino Tenn expressed his frustration with the broadband provider for not initially addressing the situation on Twitter.
“Still nothing on their twitter TL [timeline]. Their social media managers must double-hat as technical /security configuration specialists,” he said.
Virgin Media did reply to one customer to apologise for the broadband outage issues. The company advised they call 0800 561 0061 for local area updates.
The telecom company’s official status page failed to load results for customers trying to check their local broadband connection.
Customer Tim Plumb suggested workers take a few hours off, even if it means a longer working day.
“If anyone wants me while Virgin Media is down I’ll be in the garden with a cold drink. Looks like half the country will be working late tonight,” he said.
Others chimed in with some light-hearted reactions.
Customers advised to switch to mobile data
Ernest Doku, a tech expert at comparison website Uswitch.com, said the outage today will be “frustrating to thousands of Virgin Media customers”.
“The lockdown period has put increased pressure on providers to ensure customers stay connected,” he added. “And it is important these vital services are not down for long.”
Doku advised Londoners experiencing the broadband outage to use their mobile phone data by tethering their device to their laptop.
“If your broadband is down, and you have the additional data on your mobile contract, you may be able to tether to your phone and use it as a hub to connect to the internet,” he said.
“Just remember that using your mobile phone data in this way will eat up your allowance far quicker than if you only used it for your smartphone.”