EE has said its network service has been fully restored after a major outage left many unable to make or receive voice calls.

The telecoms giant had been suffering from a technical issue across the UK, with customers reporting they were unable to make or receive phone calls.

In a Twitter post, the firm said "service should be fully restored by 6pm", confirming to the Press Association shortly after that time that the issue had been fixed.

The company had earlier said the outage was limited to voice calls and only affected calls to some non-EE phone numbers, but is yet to explain the cause of the problem.

Many users across the country used social media to express their frustration at the outage.

"I can't seem to make outgoing calls or ring your customer service from my landline - is service down? Any estimates on how long?" Twitter user Steph Plowright said.

Martin Bainbridge wrote on The Northern Echo's Facebook page: "The way they have handled this has been crap, no acknowledgement on twitter of customer remarks - like they didn't care and somewhat ignorant to paying customers."

According to network status monitoring website Down Detector, EE's network first began experiencing problems early on Tuesday morning, with some claiming their fixed internet connection had also been affected.