Connectivity / MP asks people to get in touch about poor network response after cable damage
NORTHERN Isles MP Alistair Carmichael has urged local people and businesses to get in touch with him about poor performance and communication from their network provider.
It comes following the undersea cable breakage at the weekend, and Carmichael noted that there has been a growing frustration with the poor response of some network providers.
He warned that “once the dust settles” there would be a need for the government to examine their capacity to respond to more serious disruption to isles infrastructure.
Constituents can contact Carmichael’s office by email at alistair.carmichael.mp@parliament.uk or on 01856 876541 (Orkney) or 01595 690 044 (Shetland).
Many people in Shetland and Orkney have had no internet since Saturday when a fishing boat is believed to have damaged the Shefa-2 cable fibre optic cable off Orkney.
With some people with providers like BT unaffected, Sky, TalkTalk and Vodafone customers are thought to have been the worst affected by the outage.
The repair may only be completed by Sunday or Monday, Shefa managing director Páll Højgaard Vesturbú said earlier this week.
It is the second time in less than three years that damage to a subsea telecoms cable has resulted in outages in Shetland.
Carmichael said: “While we have been fortunate that last week’s cable breakage has not been as overwhelmingly disruptive as previous incidents, I have been contacted by a growing number of cases of people and businesses finding that their work or other basic needs are not being met, with network providers failing to respond in any sort of timely manner.
“I would encourage anyone who has been struggling to get support or a response from their supplier to get in touch with my office.
“The performance of network providers has run the gamut from ‘passable’ to utterly unacceptable.
“In the longer term it raises questions about their capacity to respond to more serious incidents and once the dust has settled that is something that the government should be examining.
“We need answers on how the providers are going to raise their game and the quality of their service in any future disruption.”
One Vodafone broadband customer told Shetland News that they had been advised the estimated completion time for the repair was 7pm on Friday 1 August.
The company also offered them expanded data on their mobile contract, which was also with Vodafone – but this was a phone that already had unlimited data.
There is also frustration among many over the 4G coverage in certain parts of Shetland, including in Lerwick.
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