UPDATE BT Openreach Maintenance Woes Hit ISPs in Northern Scotland

Customers of Sky Broadband and possibly a few other ISPs in the North of Scotland may be experiencing sporadic connectivity problems with their broadband and phone services today, which appears to have been caused by BTOpenreach’s “over-running network maintenance.”

The problem, which has manifested as a multiple exchange outage, began after around 5-6am this morning and affects a large number of areas in the Northern part of Scotland (predominantly the wide area between Inverness and Aberdeen).

According to Sky (9:58am), “The fault has been caused by over-running network maintenance. We’re working with our suppliers to fix this as quickly as possible and we’re sorry for any inconvenience caused.” Sky’s telephone support agents appear to be pointing the finger of blame firmly at the feet of BT, although by that they mean Openreach.

We’ve asked Openreach to clarify what went wrong with their planned maintenance.

UPDATE 2:42pm

According to Sky’s latest update (1:54pm), engineers have now “arrived on site and they’ve started repair work.”

Separately a spokesperson for Openreach told ISPreview.co.uk, “[Our] engineers are working to replace a fibre cable in the Huntley area which has taken longer than planned due to complications onsite. This may be affecting some customers’ phone or broadband services. Anyone affected should contact their Service Provider. We’re sorry for any inconvenience.”

We assume Openreach meant to say Huntly rather than Huntley as this is the midway point between Inverness and Aberdeen.