Hull residents have been left without broadband in the wake of a "major fault" detected in the town's sole broadband provider, Karoo.

Up to 40,000 of Karoo's 75,000 subscribers have been affected by the problem, which began on Wednesday morning, BBC Online reports.

A statement from the provider said that its engineers are working to amend the problem and that it is hoping that the service will return "as soon as possible".

An update is now expected from the company at 5pm today.

However, the fault is set to exacerbate Karoo customers who have already aired concerns over the fact that its monopoly status allows it to charge higher prices for broadband than rival ISPs.

Conversely, Karoo has countered that its network is available to competitors but that no rival ISPs have expressed an interest. Karoo is a subsidiary of the K-COM group.