Stop is now (hopefully) over

A Virgin Media spokesman has just told us: “We have now fully restored services to all customers after a previous power outage. We would like to apologize again for customers who were affected by the inconvenience.”

So that’s it – or is it? Downdetector still shows a few hundred reports on questions at the time of writing. Now that Virgin Medias solved the problems, these remaining problems will hopefully clean up soon. And with that we bid you goodbye to this live blog – as long as these problems remain fixed, that is.

Virgin media is back for “the vast majority of”

The good news is that, according to Virgin Media’s team on social media, it now has “recovered services for the vast majority of customers who were affected by a previous power outage”.

The bad news? If you’ve come to this page we’re guessing you don’t include you – and Virgin Media is still trying to solve some remaining problems. It says “Our teams work tirelessly to fully restore services for all remaining customers, and we apologize again for the inconvenience caused”.

Virgin Media still has not commented on the fundamental cause of the problems that have hit companies as well as individuals – said the company’s repayment company (above), for example, said KL. 14.00 that it could only offer general guidance rather than a full service.

The complaints rumble on …

While the virgin media Internet problems appear to have relieved for most people, they certainly have not disappeared according to DownDetector – with the complaints sitting at a stable 500 or so in the last two hours, which is well over the typical baseline.

It is much smaller than the top of about 10,000 we saw earlier, but it suggests that the problems turn out to be stubborn in some areas – with hotspots continued to be London, Manchester, Birmingham and Belfast. Virgin Media has not yet commented on the fundamental cause of the problems, but we will update you as soon as we hear something more.

Virgin is mid-table for broadband complaints

While Virgin Media customers may not be excited about their service today – which seems to be on repair, according to DownDetector – it can be a little comfort to know that it is by no means the worst for complaints.

According to OFCOM -Data published two weeks ago, it is bang in the middle of the “complaints per 100,000” broadband tables (queue At the top of pops Countdown music). At the top is talktal, followed by EE and now.

Virgin Media, once in Talktalk’s shoes, is now down to fourth place in front of Vodafone, BT, Plusnet and Sky, which had fewest complaints in the period from July to September 2024.

Of course, that all could change in 2025 – and Virgin Media customers hope today’s problems will be rarity, otherwise it could move in the wrong direction in the OFCOM’s table over broadband comb.

Signs of improvement?

The good news for Virgin Media customers is that Reports of DownDetector have now dropped to around 1,500 mark at the time of writing (from a highlight of 10,000 around 11.10 gmt).

This does not necessarily mean that all the problems are solved, just that there are no waves of new customers that add the complainant’s pile. But this is usually a good sign – and anecdotally some on the Techradar team has found that their internet connection is back to full fitness.

We have asked Virgin Media to tell us in a statement when it is officially solved the problems and will (hopefully) bring it to you soon.

Could you get compensation?

If you work from home and are still struggling with Virgin Media Internet problems, your thoughts may turn to compensation.

In his honor, Virgin Media is pretty aware of it on its compensation page (although some may claim it’s because it’s down so often). According to its ‘automatic compensation scheme’, you are apparently entitled to “£ 9.76 per day for a total loss of service after 2 full working days from registering the loss of service to us”.

On the downside, the problems must be a “total loss of service” and you have to detect the problems with Virgin Media either on the phone or use its service control, which many at the Techradar team has found to be very flassing today.

So while compensation is possible, there is a chance that today’s problems (currently heading towards three hours) may not qualify – and even if they do, it may be more problems to claim than is worth it.

It’s not just Virgin Media …

While Virgin Media has been by far the most affected this morning, DownDetector also shows smaller but notable spikes on other services – including BT, Xbox, Microsoft 365 and more.

Sometimes these parallel spikes are simply down in the ways people report the problems (for example, registering it as a team rather than virgin media issues). But it also suggests that the problems may be DNS (or domain name system) related, which means you can’t connect to the server to access sites.

When Community Fiber Internet went down in the UK last week, many reported that logging in their router and chose another DNS (like ‘8.8.8.8’) temporarily solved their problems, as it did with the help of a VPN. Although there is no evidence yet that doing this will help with today’s virgin power outage …

A statement from Virgin

Virgin Media has just returned to us with the following statement: “We are aware that some customers are experiencing intermittent problems with their services. We apologize for the inconvenience and are working to solve this as a priority”.

There is currently no estimated time scale for the correction, but it is good to get a recognition that Virgin is working on it. Meanwhile, it’s back to the phone -bound for many, or maybe one of the best VPNs is trying if the problems are related to DNS problems …

And … Virgin’s Service Checker is down

As if Virgin Media customers needed their blood pressure that rises higher today, the company’s service is tracker – who should tell you about known problems in your area – at the moment down to many.

However, when you look at the card of Virgin Media Reports about DownDetector, it is safe to say that this is a nationwide topic, with questions reported from Plymouth to Dundee. We are currently abounding Virgin for an explanation and updating you as soon as we hear back.

Welcome to an unlucky start to the week …

Hi, and commissions if you are a virgin media customer that has internet problems this morning. You are not alone – almost 10,000 customers have reported problems with landline internet this morning at DownDetector (above).

It includes more people on Techradar. We have reached out to Virgin Media to comment on what is causing the problems and will report back as soon as we hear – but hopefully it dips in the graph above that there is already evidence of improvement (for some) …