Residents and businesses of the remote Shetland Islands are sadly no strangers to broadband and telephone connectivity problems (here and here), so it probably came as no great surprise when the Island's BT based mobile, telephone and broadband network was put out of action for nearly 7 long hours, again, yesterday.


The problem, which also incapacitated most of the local coastguard and Subburgh Airport services, followed a power cut in Sanday on Thursday night that was not repaired correctly. This subsequently caused a power surge, blowing a fuse in the BT-operated microwave link. [INSERT PUN ABOUT SHETLAND RESIDENTS BLOWING THEIR FUSE].


BT responded to criticism of its network by reminding residents of its July 2008 news (original report), where the operator promised to bring its 21st Century Network platform to Shetland by 2012 using a 70km fibre optic submarine cable between Orkney and the Scottish mainland. Just over two more years to wait then *sigh*.