Sky phone and broadband customers are back online after hours of disruption.

Customers across east Suffolk and Essex have been left without services since yesterday evening due to essential network maintenance overrunning.

People in Ipswich began reporting an end to the blackout at around 3pm this afternoon, with Sky posting an update at around 4.30pm saying all services were now back online.

A statement said: “We’re aware that customers in Essex (including: Basildon, Braintree, Chelmsford, Leigh on Sea, Maldon and Southend) were experiencing a loss of their Sky Broadband and Sky Talk services today. We’re pleased to confirm the issue has been resolved.

“We’re very sorry for any inconvenience caused.”

A Sky spokeswoman said the company does not give out details of the exact numbers of customers affected.

She added: “Some customers may still experience some instability while we work to fully restore the network. We’re very sorry for any inconvenience caused.” Problems have reportedly affected customers in East Anglia, south-east England and northern Scotland, although services resumed in Scotland at around lunchtime.

Work is progressing in efforts to get hundreds of people without Sky broadband and telephone services back online.

Users are thought to have been disconnected since last night, with homes and businesses facing a communications blackout today.

A statement on Sky Help & Support Latest News said: “Over-running of essential planned network maintenance is causing a loss of broadband and talk services in Essex (including: Basildon, Braintree, Chelmsford, Leigh on Sea, Maldon and Southend).

“Our engineers have been on-site since early this morning, carrying out investigation work. They’ve recently confirmed that the problem has been isolated and are working hard to resolve the issue.

“We’re sorry for any inconvenience caused.”

Customers in Ipswich have also reported problems, although those in the west of the county appear to be unaffected.

A company spokeswoman refused to confirm the exact numbers affected by the blackout, but said in a statement: “We are sorry that customers some parts of the Anglian region are currently experiencing a loss of their broadband and talk services.

“Our engineers recently confirmed that the problem has been identified and are working hard to resolve issue For any further updates customers should check our Service Status page at sky.com.”

People have vented their concerns over the loss of signal on Twitter.

IpswichComputerSvcs tweeted: “There is currently a large broadband outage affecting Sky Talk and Sky Broadband users including East Anglia and much of the south.”

Mark Hooker tweeted: “Sky Broadband outage since half midnight last night apparently affecting whole of East Anglia.”

Claire Marie Prime tweeted: “No sky broadband in East Anglia. #darkages.”

YourSouthend tweeted: “Sky Broadband customers in Southend and surrounding area are currently experiencing a loss of service. Sky say they are working hard to fix.”

Teresa Cooper Author tweeted: “Many areas in east Anglia have a total sky broadband, phone and tv outage since last night. Im told we R in for a long wait before its fixed.”

Dan Haley tweeted: “#skybroadband seems to be down for Essex, reports so far of Chelmsford, Braintree, Maldon and Southend. I have no phone line either.”

MarkTweeted said on Twitter: “So the general consensus is that Sky Broadband has gone down across Essex. Marvellous.”