Openreach still working on switch orders placed during broadband disruption

INTERNET services have been restored for most Shetlanders without broadband, Openreach has said – but some folk who switched providers during the recent disruption are still waiting.

It comes after almost four weeks of disruption, with connection lost on Friday 3 October after damage to the SHEFA-2 subsea cable.

That cable was repaired on Tuesday night, but many Shetlanders were still left without internet.

But on Wednesday night many people said their connection has returned.

However a spokesperson for digital infrastructure company Openreach told Shetland News on Thursday that there is a “small backlog” of people who arranged switches during the disruption.

Some people who switched provider during the outage are still waiting for their new connection to go live.

A spokesperson for Openreach said: “The repair to restore broadband services to Shetland is now complete, and extensive testing confirms that services are back to normal.

“If anyone is still experiencing issues with their connection, they should contact their service provider, who will investigate and involve our engineers if needed.

“Our teams are now working through broadband orders that were placed during the outage.

“This has understandably created a small backlog, but our engineers have already started progressing these orders and will continue to do so as quickly as possible.”

Responding to more questions, the spokesperson said the Openreach – which is part of the BT Group – has been “ready to work” on the switch orders once connectivity was restored.

Speaking during the disruption, the BT Group confirmed there had been issues with folk switching while the cable was damaged.

It said there was lower capacity on the back-up cable solution which BT can access.

Customers of providers such as Vodafone, Sky, TalkTalk and Utility Warehouse lost broadband following the damage to the cable in shallow waters.

It echoed similar disruption in July and August when a different part of the cable network was damaged by a fishing vessel.