UPDATE Sky Broadband Suffers Outage in Essex After Fibre Optic Break

Customers of Sky Broadband’s Internet and phone services, specifically those who reside in and around the Essex area (North East of London), are currently experiencing a mix of performance and connectivity problems after a major fibre optic cable was broken near to BT’s Basildon telephone exchange.

The problem appears to have started at around 2-3pm yesterday (customer reports), although judging by the timing of Sky’s update(s) it appears to have taken several hours before engineers were able to locate the damaged cable and begin carrying out repair work.

Sky initially said that they expected the repairs to continue overnight, which they did, and this morning the issue is currently still on-going.

Sky Statement (13th March – 11pm)

If you live in the following areas of Essex and you have Sky Broadband, Sky Talk or Sky Fibre Broadband in your home, we know you’ve been having problems getting online and with making and receiving calls throughout this evening.

Billericay, Blackmore, Braintree, Broomfield, Burnham on Crouch, Chelmsford, Coggeshall, Coxtie Green, Danbury, Downhall, Eastwood, Felsted, Great Baddow, Great Dunmow, Hadleigh, Hawkwell, Hullbridge, Ingatestone, Kelvedon, Latchingdon, Leigh on Sea, Maldon, Marine, North Benfleet, Orsett, Rayleigh, Rochford, Shalford Green, Shoeburyness, Southend, Southminster, Thaxstead, Thorpe Bay, Tiptree, Witham, Witham, Woodham Ferrers and Writtle.

We checked around some other ISPs, including Easynet, and found that none of the providers we tested with were currently reporting the same problem. As such it’s likely that the fibre optic break relates to one of Sky’s dedicated / primary capacity links, although we’ve asked the operator to provide more information about the outage and are awaiting their reply.

Most cable breaks are caused by either criminal activity, accidental damage due to nearby street works or serious weather related events.

UPDATE 10:52am

Sky hasn’t given us any new details, although in a new update the ISP said: “We expect all services to be gradually restored throughout the day. We’re sorry for any inconvenience caused and we’ll provide our next update at 11:30.”