Sky internet down: thousands of users hit with broadband outage

It is currently unclear what the source of the problems is

(AFP via Getty Images)

Thousands of Sky internet customers across the country have been experiencing issues with their broadband service.

Just under 17,000 customers have been experiencing issues connecting in various local areas, Sky said. Service checker istheservicedown states that the broadband provider has been fixing issues since 07:20am GMT, with 66 per cent of those reporting issues saying they are unable to properly access their network.

It appears that the company’s services are having difficulty conveying the local problems to users. Some parts of Sky’s support services say that there is an outage occurring in their area, while other websites from Sky show that there are no issues.

Users in London, Sheffield, Goole, Hayes, and Swallownest have been reporting issues to Sky’s Help Team Twitter account. It is currently unclear what the source of the problems are. Sky did not provide comment on the record to The Independent.

Sky’s official help account has been tweeting about the issue in various areas. Users in Lodge Hill, Putney, and others have had their normal functionality resume, but those in Yorkshire, New Cross, and Hays Common are still experiencing problems.

Internet outages have become increasingly common during the coronavirus pandemic, as containment measures force people to spend more time at home using bandwidth-heavy services like online streaming platforms.

Monitoring firm ThousandEyes said in a recent report that outages had increased by 42 per cent between mid-February and April 2020. Sky had gone down previously in May of that year.

“While outages don’t follow a predictable trend there has been a notable increase in traffic due across the Internet and to core business, media and social platforms in recent weeks, due to changes in working, and living, patterns," said Ian Waters, ThousandEyes' director of product marketing.

Customers are able to monitor any issues with their service through Sky’s status page.

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