Up to 60 households and businesses in Dundee city centre may have lost their internet connections due to cable problems caused by workmen at the waterfront, BT has confirmed.
Dundee Rep and the Swinton insurance office in Reform Street are just two businesses to be affected, with their Demon-supplied internet service causing problems for both for a week now.
However, confusion reigns over how the problem occurred and just who is affected, with claims that workmen at the waterfront development accidentally cut cables being denied by the city council but confirmed by BT.
Dundee Rep general manager Ian Alexander said the internet service had been down for a full week, with his understanding being that the cable had been cut last Wednesday.
”It’s been quite difficult to get full information as we have been getting conflicting reports,” he said. ”At first we were told a fibre-optic cable that runs along the Tay Bridge had been cut and we thought it must have been caused by the work going on down at the waterfront. But it appears that the cable actually runs across the rail bridge.
”We were told engineers were scheduled to be out on Sunday to repair it, but they had to come off the bridge because of high winds. We have had our own IT experts in doing some rerouting, so the problem is restricted to receiving and sending external emails and at the box office. Only 25% of our customer base book online, though, so it’s not been too much of a problem.”
Robin Wiseman, manager at Swinton’s Dundee branch, said: ”We have been without our broadband connection since last Wednesday, which is causing us some problems with payments. We have been told that BT need to access the railway bridge to fix the line, but they can only do this once they have an induction with Network Rail for health and safety reasons.
”Once complete, they will also need to work during a quiet period and when the winds are low. We believe it could potentially take another day or so.”
A spokeswoman for BT said: ”We did have third party damage when two cables were cut at the waterfront at the weekend but it was all repaired by yesterday and did not affect Dundee Rep. Each cable can carry a maximum of 30 lines for houses and business, so up to 60 households and businesses could have been affected, but Dundee Rep is served from a different cabinet and is not connected to either of these cables.
”The damage affected phone and internet-based services and so could account for some of the disruption and we apologise for any inconvenience.”
The Courier was unable to speak to anyone from Demon but a statement on the firm’s website said: ”Broadband users connecting via the Dundee Steeple (Dundee) exchange may experience difficulties accessing the internet. Supplier engineers are working to resolve this problem. Demon regrets any inconvenience this may cause.”