Virgin Media internet down: Mass outage hits Devon as customers complain they are unable to get online
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Virgin Media users in Devon say their internet has gone offline.
Users in Plymouth, Exeter and other cities in the county said they were unable to access the web as normal.
Instead of loading websites, affected users instead saw their browser hang up and then load up an error page with attempted fixed for their connections.
The company confirmed the issue on Twitter and said that a fix was estimated at 12.15pm on 5 May. The problems began over the morning of the same day, users said.
“I can confirm there is currently an outage in your area at the moment and our engineers are working hard to get it resolved as soon as possible for you guys,” Virgin Media wrote to one affected user. “Sorry for the inconvenience this may cause this morning!”
Some customers had asked the company to confirm that it was suffering an outage to assure their employers that they were not attempting to skip work, as many people continue to do so from home.
The last year has seen people rely on their internet connections more than ever, as data from Virgin Media has repeatedly shown.
In March of this year, it announced that it had seen its biggest day of internet usage ever. The additional load was the result not only of lockdowns but also big game downloads, including Call of Duty.
The company said that, as well as record usage, those patterns had changed. Weekday afternoons have become its busiest time for upstream traffic, for instance, which had increased even when compared to the first lockdown.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments