South,
19
October
2021
|
17:19
Europe/Amsterdam

Rodents damage cables in North Devon leaving 1,800 customers out of service

Engineers working hard to repair damage

Our network in North Devon has been damaged by rodents leaving 1,800 broadband customers out of service. 

We gave this statement on Monday 18 October:

An Openreach spokesperson said, “Our telephone and broadband network in and around the Bideford, Clovelly, Hartland and Horns Cross exchange areas has been damaged by rodents.

 “The outage is currently affecting approximately 1,800 customers. Our engineers are working hard to get the repairs done quickly and safely; we don’t have an estimated repair time yet but will keep you updated as they progress.

 “We understand how frustrating this must be for anyone is affected and thank residents and businesses for their patience. We encourage anyone experiencing any disruption with their phone or broadband service to report it to their service provider who will then inform us. Damage to our network can also be reported online here”.

 

And followed it up with an update on Tuesday afternoon:

Matthew Hemmings, Managing Director for Fibre and Network Delivery, Openreach, said, “Repair work on the damaged cable serving the Bideford, Clovelly, Hartland and Horns Cross exchange areas is progressing well and we hope to have all customers back in service by tomorrow (Wednesday 20 October).

We can confirm that the damage was caused by rodents and that the scale of the damage, combined with discovering that the underground cable ducts were full of silt and filling with rain more quickly than we could drain them, have made repair work extremely challenging. We now have a team of engineers and specialist equipment working around the clock to get residents and businesses back online as quickly as possible.

“We’d like to thank the communities affected for their patience and remind anyone experiencing any disruption with their phone or broadband service to report it to their service provider who will then inform us.”

 

We'll update again when we know more.