Two UK web hosting companies - 1and1.co.uk and the Murdoch-owned easynet.com - are suffering a little downtime today, leaving customers without email or access to their websites.

Easynet's support page says it's been suffering intermittent problems on its core network since 1.38pm but hopes to get things fixed by 5.38pm this evening.

We've talked to the company's PR and will update this story when we know more.

Suspiciously, 1and1.co.uk went down at about the same time. Its own website was having problems but seems to be broadly working now.

One Reg reader who got in touch said: "I stopped getting emails at about lunchtime, pinged but got nothing and their website is down too."

1and1, which promises 99.99 per cent uptime, last went down in January.

Calls to technical support get no further than a looped message: "Unfortunately all our lines are busy now. Please call back later. Thank you. Goodbye."

Calls to the company's PR are also going straight to voicemail.

Easynet's error page is here. (http://support.uk.easynet.net/fault_details.aspx?id=899) ®

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