Updated: BT Broadband is down – major outages reported across the country [Updated]

Update: A BT spokesperson tells us that "nearly every customer affected" by the outages has been reconnected.

"We've been working hard to fix the issue and are glad to report that nearly every customer affected is now reconnected, approximately two hours after the problem started," they said. "We apologise to any affected customers for the inconvenience."

They also added that there is "no evidence" to suggest this was the result of a malicious attack.

Original story below...

If you're a BT Broadband customer and can't get online right now (which means you probably can't read this), don't panic – the rest of the country is experiencing problems too.

Lots of customers are complaining of outages, and Down Detector shows problems across the UK, with most reports coming from London, Birmingham, Guildford, Coventry, Manchester, Ruislip, Sheffield, Leicester, Glasgow and Leeds.

The map above gives an indicator of how bad the problem is, but going by Twitter it looks like the issue is much more widespread. BT's own service status page clearly isn't giving the full picture, with only a handful of problems reported.

People from all around the UK are telling techradar they're experiencing a BT Broadband blackout. Readers have reported outages in Sussex, Gloucestershire and Wales.

The BT website is also experiencing technical difficulties, and the customer service line appears to be down too. Customers say that they're being met with an engaged tone when they dial - helpful.

BT says its engineers are working on the problem right now, but we're pestering for more information.

• How to get the most out of mobile data when your broadband goes down