BRITISH Telecom has apologised after thousands of Oxfordshire people were unable to use their telephones this morning.

A fault at a phone exchange in Abingdon left people across South and West Oxfordshire unable to make or receive calls.

The problem became apparent at 8am, and was fixed after three-and-a-half hours. Homes and businesses in Abingdon, Witney, West Hanney, Sutton Courtenay and Chipping Norton were among those affected.

A spokeswoman for the phone company said: “We apologise to all our customers. As soon as we were alerted to the problem we fixed it.”

The spokesman could not confirm exactly how many phones had been affected.