{"id":21382,"date":"2020-03-05T09:44:55","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T09:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/?p=21382"},"modified":"2020-03-05T16:50:27","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T16:50:27","slug":"major-virgin-media-broadband-and-tv-outage-on-south-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2020\/03\/major-virgin-media-broadband-and-tv-outage-on-south-coast.html","title":{"rendered":"Major Virgin Media Broadband and TV Outage on South Coast UPDATE2"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’re receiving quite a few reports from Virgin Media<\/a>’s UK cable broadband ISP and TV customers (including business clients – other ISPs will be impacted), specifically those resident along the south coast of England (Dorset, Hampshire etc.), which claim that a major service outage is occurring in that area.<\/p>\n

The reports are currently quite sporadic, with some claiming that the issue started at around 11:30pm last night (and it hasn’t been back up since) and most others only spotting the problem since waking up this morning at around 7am. We did attempt to check Virgin Media<\/a>’s service status page with a few postcodes but it is also faulty and returning a not at all ironic message of “Oops something’s broken<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

Sadly Virgin Media’s Twitter and Facebook pages have yet to be updated with a general statement, although some of their staff have said this in response to individual complaints: “We are aware of an issue affecting services for customers in Southampton and some surrounding areas. We are working to fix the issue as quickly as possible and apologise for any inconvenience<\/em>” (note: the issue is impacting a much wider area than just Southampton).<\/p>\n

A number of other sources have alleged that the problem may be caused by a breakage on two of the operator’s key fibre optic cables for their access network (Entanet<\/a> points the finger at cables 96f and 160f). On top of that it’s further claimed that this might have even been cut by Virgin Media’s own team during Planned Works – ref: C01096591 (we are trying to verify those reports).<\/p>\n

According to some of Virgin Media’s business clients, engineers are at the location and fibre splicing is already taking place. Apparently 2km of new cable will be needed to replace the existing 96f (critical services on the 160f cable should be back online sooner, we hope).<\/p>\n

UPDATE 10:01am<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some of the operator’s business clients are confirming that the outage began before midnight last night (11:45pm seems to be an agreed time) and that other ISPs, such as Sky Broadband<\/a>, are likely to be affected. One has expressed surprise that so many services have been hit by a single point of failure.<\/p>\n

The official statement given to us by Virgin Media is sadly identical to the one that their support staff have been repeating above. Meanwhile they’ve yet to put a general notice on their Twitter or Facebook pages.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 12:27pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

The impact of the problem is also being felt in parts of Somerset and Wiltshire.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 12:48pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Surprisingly Virgin Media have yet to post a central public update to their social media channels (their service status page also continues to be offline), although we are hearing that some customers are slowly coming back online and there is a community forum post<\/a> about it.<\/p>\n

Sadly this isn’t the first time that Virgin has dropped the ball when it comes to keeping their customers informed about a major outage (or in this case, failing to keep them informed). We also note that their outage appears to be affecting the Southern NHS.<\/p>\n

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Some of our services do not have access to phone or e-mail due to a Virgin network issue. Virgin media are working to restore services asap. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. https:\/\/t.co\/GREkN481Vb<\/a><\/p>\n

— Hampshire and IOW Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (@HIOWH_NHSFT) March 5, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n