Why did internet services get disrupted last week in Caithness? Openreach gives update
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Repairs to a damaged offshore cable which disrupted internet services in Caithness and Orkney were due to get under way this week.
Many in the county lost internet services after the underwater cable was damaged last week but Openreach, the company responsible for the link, said the connection issues should now be resolved.
Sky customers in and around Wick and Thurso were particularly affected by the outage, which started at around 5.30pm on Tuesday, January 31, and lasted into the weekend.
Openreach Ltd is responsible for the cable and one of its spokespeople said on Thursday last week: "Engineers are working in difficult weather conditions to assess the scale and nature of damage to a subsea cable between Orkney and Thurso, and establish likely repair timescales.
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Many Caithness residents lose Internet services after underwater cable is damaged
"Most voice and broadband services are unaffected and we’re not seeing any capacity issues or degradation in our wider network, which we’re carefully monitoring.
"However, we’re aware of some disruption for customers of one service provider in the Wick and Thurso areas, where we’re checking if local links can be rerouted, and a second provider in the Stromness area on Orkney."
On Monday, Openreach said that the remaining affected services in Thurso and Stromness were re-routed and restored by lunchtime on Saturday and the affected services in Wick were restored on Friday.
A spokesperson said: "No-one should now be without service as a result of the subsea cable damage, so anyone experiencing any issues should report it to their service provider for further investigation as usual.
"The subsea repair ship is currently on the way to Orkney, with work on offshore repairs 1.7km from the Orkney mainland expected to start late this week and continue over the weekend as long as it’s safe to go ahead.
"Conditions like wind strength and direction, wave height and tidal flow will be assessed once the vessel, work boats, shore crew and divers are all on site."
