Northumberland Villages Face Second Lengthy Broadband Outage UPDATE
Homes in the tiny rural Northumberland (England) villages of Kirkheaton, Wallridge and surrounding communities have been told that it could be up to 3 weeks before their Openreach based broadband and phone services are fully back online. The situation follows a two-week outage that hit Kirkheaton during Storm Arwen in early 2022.
At the time of Storm Arwen, the main cause of the local connectivity problems was actually an extended power outage (even battery backup systems will only last so long). But this time around the outage was triggered, on 14th August 2023, by a two-vehicle crash beside the wonderfully titled ‘Make Me Rich Farm‘, near Capheaton, which caused serious damage to a local telecoms pole and its cables.
Openreach has previously informed us that, at least during major storm related issues, it can take around 20 days to fix damaged poles. But over the years we’ve seen examples where, in rare cases of extreme damage, rural areas have been left to wait for 6-12 weeks before repairs (here, here and here) – often due to delays caused by the need to get permits/permissions to conduct the work.
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By comparison, in urban areas, a downed pole may only be a matter of hours or just a few short days to resolve, but experiences do vary.
An Openreach spokeswoman said (Chronicle Live):
“A vehicle collision with a telegraph pole in the Kirkheaton area has caused the loss of phone and broadband to some people in the vicinity. Due to the extent of the damage the pole needs to be completely replaced and despite best efforts providing a temporary service has not been possible.
Our contractors are due to begin work to replace the pole this week and then our engineers will get all those affected back up and running as quickly as possible. We’re very sorry for any inconvenience caused while we repair this damage to the network.”
A quick look on one.network shows that there is one piece of traffic management related Openreach work that is due to occur in Wallridge, albeit between 4th and 12th September, yet this doesn’t appear to be near to where the pole itself is said to have been damaged. Local 4G mobile reception is also said to be very patchy, which limits that as a viable backup option.
The situation is particularly frustrating for locals because, at the time of the last major outage, some of them were allegedly given assurances by MPs and utility companies that such protracted problems would not occur again. But we assume that such assurances related more to power than telecoms disruption.
UPDATE 24th August 2023 @ 11am
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Openreach has confirmed that they completed the work to re-connect everyone yesterday, although it still took 10+ days to reach that point.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Think I found the related roadworks on the cross roads by Capheaton:
Openreach works
23 Aug ’23 08:40 to 23 Aug ’23 10:18
Work description
BT fault ref WF4V1C4T to replace 1 x pole
Promoter
Openreach
Permit status
Closed
Works last updated
23 Aug 2023 10:44:01
Last updated on one.network
23 Aug 2023 10:44:18
The one I think you ref in the article is not related:
Openreach works
03 Sep ’23 23:00 to 12 Sep ’23 22:59
Work description
Install 275m of 1 way poly duct in Verge, Install 35m of 1 way poly duct in Carriageway, Build 5 x Concrete chambers in Verge.
Promoter
Openreach
Permit status
Application
Works last updated
18 Aug 2023 09:21:02
Last updated on one.network
18 Aug 2023 09:21:17
“A quick look on one.network shows that there is one piece of traffic management related Openreach work that is due to occur in Wallridge, albeit between 4th and 12th September, yet this doesn’t appear to be near to where the pole itself is said to have been damaged”
Probably because the pole has already been replaced.
“Make Me Rich Farm”, he’s not been watching Jeremy Clarkson then. Sympathy to those affected and I hope it’s soon fixed.
Raise an X2 with 2 hour response and resolve same day or next day. No such thing as issues with permits as you can raise an immediate road closure on the day due to safety. The associated cable work may take longer but not the pole itself. 3 poles completed as X2 this week on the same day they come in.
Splendid example of the positive use of this medium to pool and share experience and knowledge to help resolve service problems! Positive and inspiring, keep it up please!
Sadly there are articles on BBC ref a village in Wiltshire out for 3 weeks and numerous other examples in rural areas that the time to fix is three weeks plus. I can identify 3 instances near me showing the same outage time where one village even had to resort to going on Midlands today News as they were getting no where. The concern is that for some villages and communities at present and possibly for quite some time the mobile coverage means they are in effective not spots and cannot actually call to raise that there is a fault. So that means no emergency services calls. t is matter that does need to looked into in so far that if any outage effecting premises there should not at present be an assumption there is mobile coverage and therefore 3 weeks is sort of acceptable and if that is the outage time due to process rather than resources then lets make sure that’s clear and published. No one underestimates the challenges of rural areas but its no use sending a 4G Mini router if there is no mobile