Vodafone in the UK is experiencing a massive outage of its mobile network and broadband service.

Reports that customers could not access services began at 3pm local time, according to the Down Detector website.

More than 135,000 Vodafone customers had reported disruption by 3.20pm.

Most of the incidents appeared to impact customers who have Vodafone broadband services at their homes, while a quarter of incidents related to mobile Internet access, and a smaller percentage of users reported not being able to make phone calls.

Vodafone said it was experiencing a "major issue on our network affecting broadband, 4G, and 5G services.”

A company spokesperson added: "We appreciate our customers' patience while we work to resolve this as soon as possible.”

With more than 29 million customers following its merger with Three earlier this year, Vodafone is the UK’s largest mobile network.

Voxi, a mobile virtual network operator owned by Vodafone, and Lebara, which uses the company’s infrastructure, have also reportedly been affected by the outage.