WHAT appears to be a Sky broadband outage has been reported in Ardrossan and other parts of North Ayrshire.

There have been numerous reports on social media of issues with Sky broadband connections in the area, particularly Ardrossan itself.

One user said: "@SkyHelpTeam is there a general broadband issue in  Ardrossan, North Ayrshire? Booked an engineer out but also got a text which sounded like it was an area issue and not stand alone."

Sky's website has shown reports of problems in the area, which says: "Broadband and Talk problems. You might not be able to get online or make/receive phone calls due to a problem in your local area. We're sorry for any inconvenience caused."

Is the Service Down? UK, a site which allows users experiencing problems to report these, has also shown clear signs the service is down in the area.

Reported issues sky-rocketed around 1-2pm today (February 2) from under ten reports, to over 30, with 61 per cent of these reports being related to internet connectivity.

A Sky broadband user who phoned the Herald on Wednesady said he phoned the company after his connection went down around 1pm, and said he was told they have "no idea when it will be back on".

Some of those who reported outages expressed concern that they might not be able to watch live TV coverage of Wednesday night's SPFL Premiership match between Celtic and Rangers.

Many customers choose to take advantage of NOW TV to watch Sky's sport channels, but an internet connection is required for the NOW TV service and no broadband would leave them unable to watch the game.

If you are having problems testing your connectivity, the Sky Help Team suggests heading to their website to run checks on the connection in your area.