{"id":23240,"date":"2020-07-23T14:13:07","date_gmt":"2020-07-23T13:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/?p=23240"},"modified":"2020-07-23T16:37:27","modified_gmt":"2020-07-23T15:37:27","slug":"broadband-isps-disrupted-by-bt-exchange-fire-in-newcastle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2020\/07\/broadband-isps-disrupted-by-bt-exchange-fire-in-newcastle.html","title":{"rendered":"UK Broadband ISPs Disrupted by BT Exchange Fire in Newcastle UPDATE3"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve received reports that broadband and other telecoms services across part of North East England are currently being disrupted by a fire that has broken out at a core BT<\/a> exchange (NCL) in Newcastle. The situation is known to be affecting connectivity for a number of UK ISPs and their customers.<\/p>\n

The fire is understood to have started around midday. The Technology Group<\/a>, a managed communications provider, said: “We are advised that there is a core BT<\/a> outage affecting 000s of customers across multiple providers. Initial reports indicate this is due to an Exchange fire and is localised to the North of England, affecting multiple Network Carriers. We apologise on behalf of the carrier for the disruption and are working with our providers to understand the issue and a timeline for resolution. We will issue further updates as we receive them. We are advised the next update is likely to be around 1500<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile broadband ISP Andrews and Arnold (AAISP) has published a status update direct from BT<\/a>, which said: “Our network team have raised [an issue] for a fire in the Newcastle node… obviously the fire will need to be put out and permission granted to enter and assess the damage when safe to do so<\/em>” (here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

A BT Spokesperson said:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“We’re aware some customers are currently experiencing problems when trying to make calls or connect to the internet. This is due to a fire in Newcastle, which has now been contained. Our engineers are on site and working quickly to resolve this.<\/p>\n

We apologise to our customers for any inconvenience caused.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the time of writing it’s unclear how the fire started or if anybody has been hurt in the incident, but we hope not. Sadly fires have a tendency to cause lengthy periods of disruption and as such it may be awhile before normal service is fully restored, although in the meantime engineers should be able to reroute most of the traffic (we’re already seeing a lot of lines return to life).<\/p>\n

At present we don’t know how much damage has been caused.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 2:31pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

A number of shops in Newcastle city centre are currently only able to take cash payments due to their data links being down.<\/p>\n

The Northumberland County Council<\/strong> (NCC) have also posted the following notice: “We’re aware of national reports BT and TalkTalk<\/a> internet are down for many people across the UK. There was also reports earlier from Northern Powergrid of powercuts affecting the NE22, NE61 and NE62 postcode areas<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

Emergency Services have also been hit.<\/p>\n

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Due to phone network problems, some callers in Durham Constabulary area may have difficulties contacting 999 and 101 from a landline. Where possible, please use a mobile or our 101 Live Chat service https:\/\/t.co\/O9LFH6s64a<\/a><\/p>\n

— Durham Constabulary (@DurhamPolice) July 23, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n