‘Deeply concerned’ by response to cable fault
Liam McArthur has “demanded” answers from BT over what he called its “poor response” to a broadband blackout in the North Isles.
His frustration comes amid delays to the repair of the subsea cable which was damaged last month, causing the outage.
Isles residents continue to face a lack of connectivity several weeks on, with a full repair now not expected until mid-April.
The blackout, which began on Monday, March 16, has seen many businesses forced to rely on 4G hotspots.
People working remotely have struggled to do so, and community groups have sprung into action to support the most vulnerable and isolated residents.
BT were identified as responsible for carrying out the repair on the cable between Evie and Westray, but the arrival of a specialist ship has not been on schedule.
Mr McArthur has today written to BT’s chief executive to highlight concerns with the approach taken to contingency measures and communications with customers.
Mr McArthur, who is seeking re-election as Orkney’s MSP, said: “When a subsea cable fault caused widespread outages in the Northern Isles last summer, I was clear that lessons would need to be learned by network providers.
“As many islanders have come to discover in recent weeks, this clearly hasn’t happened.
“That we are seeing another fault of this scale in less than a year is a stark reminder of how reliant we are on subsea infrastructure for connectivity.
The politician said he had spent the past week and half visiting some of the islands worst affected.
“While I appreciate that recent weather conditions have made repair efforts difficult, I am deeply concerned by the lack of support and communication provided by BT and other providers.
“All providers must now give urgent attention to how systems can be put in place which allow customers to be automatically migrated onto alternative phone and broadband services when outages occur, regardless of their provider or what package they’re on.
“Where this may require compensation from one provider to another this can and should be resolved business to business rather than requiring customers to scramble around trying to find out what’s going on and a solution to the problems they are facing.”
Mr McArthur said it was “frankly astonishing” that BT had refused requests for interviews from local media in Orkney.
“Even where there may be uncertainty, islanders have a right to be kept updated,” he added, dubbing the level of response “just not acceptable.”
The Orcadian has approached BT for a response.