BT broadband outage fixed

BT customers across the UK went without broadband services for a period over the weekend due to a technical fault.

The communications giant said the outage, which has now been fixed, was caused by a fault in a switch at an exchange in the Edinburgh area.

There has been no confirmation on the number of people affected, but some estimates have said thousands could have been hit by broadband failures.

A tweet from BT during the outage said the main areas affected were the Midlands, North England and Scotland. There were also reports of customers in Northern Ireland complaining of a loss of connectivity.

"Following a technical fault at an exchange in the Edinburgh area on Friday night which caused disruption to some broadband services, BT confirms that services were restored to customers in the early hours of Saturday morning," a statement sent to IT PRO read.

"BT's engineering teams worked throughout the night to resolve outstanding customer issues and to monitor the performance of the network."

BT has had to cope with severe outages before. Earlier this year a fire at a BT building near Paddington took out phone and internet services in central, western and northern London.

Last year, tens of thousands of people in East London were left without broadband when a third-party contractor damaged some BT cables.