THOUSANDS of homes and some businesses have been affected over the weekend by an Internet Outage within Maghull, Merseyside.
Around 3,000 properties have list landlines and Wi-Fi access on Thursday and over the weekend. Openreach said that she issue was due to fibre optic cables had accidentally been significantly damaged, during work on:- Hall Lane, Maghull.
A Spokesperson for Openreach has said in a press statement:- 'We know how important it is for people to stay connected and we're very sorry for the disruption this incident has caused. We hope to restore services over Sunday. "
Cllr David Leatherbarrow added:- "Many residents across:- Maghull (L31) and surrounding areas are continuing to experience broadband and internet disruption following damage to underground telecommunications infrastructure. I've been down to the site of the severed cable to speak to senior contractors. The outage was caused after a 3rd party contractor carrying out utility works, believed to be related to sewer excavation, accidentally damaged multiple fibre optic cables close to the BT Maghull exchange. I'm awaiting a follow up conversation around how this happened and next steps. The incident has affected both fibre and copper broadband connections, as well as some business Ethernet services, including links supporting critical infrastructure. Current estimates suggest around:- 3,000 customers have been affected, although this figure could increase as further faults are reported. The repair has been given a high priority, and engineering teams are on site. However, before work can begin on the damaged cables, the area must first be made safe due to the nature and location of the excavation. There are:- 3000 connections which need to be manually replaced. Each connection takes roughly 5 minutes of manpower and restoration is estimated to be Saturday, late evening. There are also reports of slower than normal mobile data speeds across the area. This is thought to be because many people have switched to mobile internet while their broadband service is unavailable. Work is taking place with mobile network operators to see whether additional network capacity can be provided during the outage. If your broadband is affected, you should report the fault to your internet service provider if you have not already done so. In the meantime, please be aware that mobile data may also be slower than usual because of increased demand. We will share further updates, as more information becomes available. Thank you for your patience while engineers work to restore services as quickly and safely as possible."
Have you been affected by the outage?