Thousands of Virgin Media customers have had their broadband disconnected following problems with a routine maintenance procedure, the BBC reports.

Nation-wide on Monday night the maintenance saw a massive service outage. Some customers were reconnected within 10 minutes, while others had to wait several hours.

Virgin Media has said it is does not know how many of its 3.6 million broadband customers were hit overall and that they were working to reconnect those still without service.

The set-top boxes that access Virgin Media's IPTV services and modems were affected which meant problems with not only broadband connections, but also on demand and interactive services.

Virgin Media customers have been advised to re-start their modems and set-top boxes.

A spokesperson said: "Most of the problems occurred in the North West, Yorkshire and the Midlands and the majority of affected customers regained their service shortly after midnight.

"Our engineers are currently working to restore the few remaining connections as quickly as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused."

>> Via - BBC