Hedge Trimmer Mishap Knocks Homes Offline in Cornwall UK Village
It’s still not entirely clear how it happened, but some homes in the tiny rural Cornwall village of Golberdon are currently suffering from a protracted broadband and phone outage after cables belonging to Openreach were accidentally cut last month by an enthusiastic individual using a garden hedge trimmer.
A quick look at the community, which appears to have been covered by Openreach’s (BT) latest full fibre (FTTP) broadband network, shows that local homes are primarily being served via overhead cables on poles. Suffice to say that it’s easy to imagine somebody attempting to prune tree branches and accidentally slicing through a bunch of cables (possibly a mix of fibres and copper lines).
According to the BBC News (credits Ionide for the link), the damaged cable was finally replaced on Friday last week, and at that point most people were reconnected. But it appears as if four properties are still disconnected and Openreach are currently investigating those.
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A spokesperson for Openreach said:
“We required traffic management to make repairs safely. This was granted last Friday and the damaged cable was replaced, reconnecting most customers.
Four properties are still offline and engineers were onsite yesterday to investigate further.
We’re keeping the customers’ providers up to date and will get these customers back online as quickly as possible”.
It’s worth noting that overhead cables are usually too high for most hedge cutters to reach from the ground, which suggests that somebody was working at a height in the vicinity of the operator’s poles (possibly on a tree) when the incident occurred. But some telescopic trimmers can go high enough.
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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BT have placed poles very close to three trees (3 poles) on our estate.The cables have now been fitted and it’s understandable how it could happen, if a long reach trimmer is used. The lamp standard in the car park that they bent with a pole on their truck is halfway through being replaced. Oh deep joy.
No, the lamp standard is not being replaced – BT denies liability. It just happened that brighter lights were being fitted. I saw the lorry parked nearby with the pole on the back and the black mark on the lamp where it caught. There are worse things going on in the world, I admit.
Puts a new spin on FTTH – Fibre through the Hedge.
Now the cable is dangling loose into the hedge it is still FTTP – Fibre to the Privet.
FTTH – Failure To Target Hedge?
If I’ve got a privet in my garden is that a new way to actually get BT’s real fiber services to your home?
Data Privetcy failure?
in the street next to me Openreach have gone pole to pole with cables passing through the trees. In fact where the trees have grown they are now stretching the cables. No surprise at all. Extremely poor practice if you ask me.
Another reason why this infrastructure should be under ground. One accidental cut of an overhead cable is able to take a village offline, presumably one fibre feeds all the residents. Bad weather would do the same thing, vandals could do the same thing, a tree falling on the line would also do the same thing. So that could be an entire village offline with no telephone (if no mobile signal) and so no ability to get help in an emergency. What a way to install important infrastructure in 2024!
The poles were there, carrying copper phone lines, for decades before the fibre was.
Imagine the clown managed to “trim” a power cable.
People do stupid stuff all the time, but you can’t blame the cable for being where it was; moron should be paying attention when using electrical equipment overhead.
Same guy probably would have dug a hole into a ducted cable.
I hear the pole had to be replaced so suspect this was an agricultural hedge trimmer rather than a domestic hand held trimmer
The one thing that I do wonder about this is…..who is going to foot the bill?
Do Openreach deal with this as part of just doing business, or will they be looking at claiming it back from the person who cut their infrastructure down? Strikes me as quite a significant cost outlay for a simple mistake!
They will pursue those responsible for the costs involved
The “Pirates of Penzance” at work again:-
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=gilbert+and+sullivan+the+very+model+of+a+modern+major+general&mid=80EEF91085A50AD56D2780EEF91085A50AD56D27&FORM=VIRE
They are the very model of modern telecommunications companies
What am I missing here?
I am still out after cableslying on ground mangled by council clearing drain on verge. Cable been lying on ground years Openreach could not care less.