North Isles internet cable damage caused by rocky seabed

A broken subsea cable — resulting in homes and businesses across the North Isles being plunged into a digital blackhole — had become damaged by abrasion on the rocky seabed.

The repaired cable between Evie and Westray will now be re-routed to an area with a “less hostile seabed” as part of efforts to avoid a repeat scenario, with burying the cable not an option.

Connectivity and internet services across the North Isles are due to come back online with repairs on track to be completed on Saturday.

At least 500 homes and businesses were cut off in March when the subsea cable failed.

The broadband blackout was declared a major incident and emergency response teams moved swiftly to restore connectivity, including to vital services, such as GP surgeries.

Since then, communities have relied on interim solutions including mobile phone data and hotspot capability.

The arrival of a specialist cable repair ship had been delayed due to poor weather, but Pierre De Fermat arrived in Orkney last Friday to undertake the fix on behalf of owners BT.

Now, more details on the extent of the damage and what caused the cable to fail in the first place have emerged.

A Facebook post shared by Westray Development Trust contains an update from Robbie McGhee, the deputy director for digital connectivity at Scottish Government.

The update said: “The repair has been more extensive than anticipated, with around 8km of cable replaced due to the scale of the damage. The cause of the break appears to be abrasion on the seabed.

“This particular route involves rock seabed so the cable cannot be buried, which increases the risk of damage.

“However, as part of the repair, BT has rerouted the cable slightly, to a stretch with less hostile seabed, which should reduce future risk of similar breaks.

“Once the work in Orkney is completed, the repair ship will be heading to Islay as planned to fix the cable there. That should be completed by next midweek.

“Hopefully you should start to see fibre services restored very soon.”