O2's data network will be back online by tomorrow morning, the company has revealed.

In a joint statement the chief executives of O2 and Ericsson apologised to customers for the 'poor experience' they faced as they struggled to make calls and get online on Thursday (December 6). 

Mark Evans, the head of O2's parent company Telefonica, said: "I want to let our customers know how sorry I am for the impact our network data issue has had on them, and reassure them that our teams, together with Ericsson, are doing everything we can.

"We will continue to work with Ericsson through the night, who have assured us that a full service will be restored for customers by the morning. 

"We fully appreciate it has been a full experience and we are really sorry."

Ericsson's UK chief Marielle Lindgren said customers were unable to receive any data due to 'network disturbances'. 

She said: "The cause of today's network issue is in certain nodes in the core network resulting in network disturbances for a limited number of customers across the world, including in the UK. 

"We have been working hard on resolving the UK data issue since early this morning. 

"The faulty software that has caused these issues is being decommissioned. 

"Our priority is to restore full data services on the network by tomorrow morning. 

"Ericsson sincerely apologises to customers for the inconvenience caused."