Toxic Gas Disrupts Openreach’s UK Broadband Network in Aldershot UPDATE

Network access provider Openreach (BT) appears to have closed access to all underground structures within the Aldershot exchange (ACM) area in Hampshire (England), which occurred yesterday after they identified “suspected toxic gases” within the local underground network.

The move means that Openreach’s engineers, including those working for rival broadband and phone networks that share some of the same infrastructure, are currently prevented from doing any telecoms work (e.g. network expansion, major repairs etc.) in underground structures within this area. Suffice to say, the safety of engineers must come first.

The restrictions do not currently impact engineering work on their above ground and overhead network (telecoms poles and street cabinets), which means that some new service provisions and general repairs should be able to proceed. Openreach are currently in the process of investigating the area to identify exactly what type of gas is involved and hopefully also its source, which will then inform their next steps.

Regular readers of ISPreview may well point to the huge disruption that was caused by an underground petrol leak in the village of Bramley (Surrey), which has taken several years to tackle (here). The hope is that the situation in the town of Aldershot won’t be anything like as protracted and serious as that (hopefully it’s isolated to a small area and is a temporary issue), which does seem unlikely as Bramley was particularly extreme.

ISPreview has asked Openreach if they’re able to provide an update and will report back shortly.

UPDATE 1:06pm

A small number of customers in the local area may be experiencing disruption to their phone and broadband at the same time as this is occurring. Openreach has recognised how disruptive this is, and is doing all they can to switch them to alternative connectivity. The operator is also working with ISPs to identify any impacted vulnerable customers and have their Emergency Response Team on standby should they be needed for critical repairs.

An Openreach spokesperson told ISPreview:

“We’ve carried out precautionary safety checks and additional specialist testing in our underground network in Aldershot after detecting unusual gases in two underground chambers. The area was historically a gas works, so this is a known risk locally.

Until test results are confirmed the affected chambers have been sealed and we’ve restricted access to the underground network to keep everyone safe.”

The good news, then, is that the detectable side of the issue currently seems confined to just two of their underground chambers, which suggests that Openreach may be able to return most of the area to normal operations again fairly soon. But gas does travel fairly easily through ducts and so complications are still a possibility.

The Aldershot Gas Works were closed in the 1960s, although demolition didn’t completely conclude until the early 2000s. The site primarily handled the production and storage of coal gas (town gas) from coal.