North isles internet outage expected to take ‘some time to fix’

An internet outage in the north isles has been labelled a “major incident” and could take some time to fix.


A subsea cable fault, currently affecting parts of Westary, Sanday, Stronsay and near by islands, has seen businesses and homes without broadband and internet services since yesterday morning.

Disruption appears to be primarily centred on loss of internet connection, with variable levels of disruption to mobile (4G) service.

Orkney MSP Liam McArthur, shared a response from Vodafone regarding the issue, which Openreach are now calling a “major incident” and advising it could require a specialist ship to fix.

The statement from Vodafone shared by Mr McArthur said: “Openreach has confirmed that the problem is caused by damage to one of the subsea cables serving the area, and they have formally declared this a major incident.

“Because repairs are looking like they will require a specialist cable ship and suitable weather conditions, the fix may take some time.

“We are working closely with BT Openreach and VMO2 [Virgin Media O2], and our own teams are updating customer impact numbers using postcode‑level data.

“We are also trying to work out what backhaul we can put in place to try and get the mobile sites live as soon as possible.”

Meanwhile, Orkney Islands Council (OIC) are monitoring the situation and convened a meeting of their incident management team today to discuss the impacts across schools and care networks.

The council report no issues with traditional phone lines and 999 services.

An OIC spokeswoman said: “We are in contact with BT Openreach and await confirmation of repair timelines. Our incident team will meet again on Thursday should the issue been ongoing at this point.”

Mr McArthur has asked island residents who have any specific concerns that might be followed up, to contact his constituency office in Kirkwall.