Contractors “cut through fibre” serving 6,000 properties causing internet outage

Openreach have provided an update, and cause, on the internet issues affecting a large part of Wrexham.

The connectivity issues started yesterday afternoon, and could remain through until tomorrow morning.

With the move to more digital services many people have reported problems with both broadband wired internet and 3G and 4G. Similarly with the accelerated move to ‘Work From Home’ and digital interactions many have found today problematic – for example ordering repeat prescriptions via online services.

Lots of what appeared to be Openreach vans on Grove Road with people looking into holes. Presume that is progress!

— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) May 30, 2022

A spokesperson for Openreach told us: “Unfortunately one of our contractors working on our behalf cut through fibre serving approximately 6000 properties in Wrexham.”

“Our engineers have been working hard throughout the night to replace the damaged fibre cable and jointers are currently on site to connect the new fibre joints.”

“The first customers will start having full service restored later today and subject to any unforeseen problems we anticipate that all customers will be back on line tomorrow.”

“We’re sorry for the inconvenience caused by this incident and appreciate the patience shown by those customers that have been affected.”

Openreach manage the network for all providers, and is legally separate from BT since a split in 2017, so the outage is affecting Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone and others as well as BT customers.

Top pic: Lots of work taking place on Grove Rd / Grosvenor Rd today.

If your Internet is off in @wrexham and you need to work from home, the Wrexham Enterprise Hub is open and we have Internet 👍

— Arran Hodges (@ArranOnAir) May 30, 2022