{"id":22394,"date":"2025-02-03T20:23:36","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T20:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/broadband-fix-could-take-another-fortnight\/"},"modified":"2025-02-03T20:23:36","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T20:23:36","slug":"broadband-fix-could-take-another-fortnight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/broadband-fix-could-take-another-fortnight\/","title":{"rendered":"Broadband fix could take another fortnight"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Jayne McCormack<\/span><\/p>\n

BBC News NI political correspondent<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"PAPA Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Storm \u00c9owyn brought down trees and damaged power lines across Northern Ireland<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Some customers in Northern Ireland could have to wait up to another fortnight to have their internet and phone connectivity restored after Storm \u00c9owyn, a Stormont politician has said.<\/p>\n

DUP assembly member Deborah Erskine said five telecoms masts had been destroyed during last month’s storm<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While electricity has been restored to almost all those affected, Erskine said the loss of connectivity remained a serious problem.<\/p>\n

BBC News NI has seen a message from broadband provider Fibrus telling a customer that service in their area will be restored by 17 February – two weeks away.<\/p>\n

As of Monday afternoon, Fibrus had about 6,000 customers out of service due to confirmed fibre faults.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It said assessing timelines was challenging “given the dependencies on other providers” but all remaining customers were being given a timeframe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Elderly and vulnerable<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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In the assembly on Monday, Erskine – who is the assembly member (MLA) for Fermanagh and South Tyrone – raised concerns about elderly and vulnerable customers who remained without a estimated time for restoration.<\/p>\n

“People in my own constituency are forced to travel to access networks at their own expense,” she said.<\/p>\n

“This is not the time for telecoms companies to hide.”<\/p>\n

She urged new Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald to put pressure on the networks to act more quickly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"PAPA<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Electricity engineers inspect damage by fallen trees near Hillsborough<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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SDLP MLA for Mid Ulster Patsy McGlone said he had referred a number of customers to Fibrus, including one business that had been told it will be another week before their supply could be repaired.<\/p>\n

Archibald said she understood the concerns, but added that telecoms is the responsibility of the UK Government, specifically the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She added that companies were “working closely” with Northern Ireland Electricity and that services were being restored where it was safe to do so.<\/p>\n

“A post-incident review of Storm \u00c9owyn led by the London government will take place on 10 February, and will assess the impacts, lessons learned and future impacts following the storm,” said Archibald.<\/p>\n

Fibrus has said that more than 50% of all customers out of service as a result of fibre damage have been reconnected.<\/p>\n

The provider said it had suffered “unprecedented levels” of damage from the storm.<\/p>\n

The network extends to about 400,000 homes across Northern Ireland and Cumbria.<\/p>\n

About 40,000 customers were impacted at the peak of the storm, “around three quarters of which were related to power outages and the remainder related to damage to fibre infrastructure”.<\/p>\n

The provider said 300 people were out in the field to get customers back online as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n

“This task is heavily reliant on other infrastructure providers, in particular NIE and Openreach. We have been working closely with NIE as the complete picture of damage to our fibre network only becomes clear as power is fully restored.”<\/p>\n

BBC News NI has also approached the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

‘Very frustrating’ <\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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SDLP councillor Denise Johnston lives in Mid Ulster and has been without internet since the storm.<\/p>\n

She told the Evening Extra programme<\/a> the situation was “very frustrating” for those in the local community who had been left without broadband.<\/p>\n

“We often think that young people are the only people that are really dependent on the wifi, but we have all our businesses.”<\/p>\n

She added that many older people rely on WhatsApp and Facebook to contact their family.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Fibrus has said that it will be offering compensation on a case-by-case basis to affected customers who have faced service interruptions lasting more than 48 hours.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

NIE will restore power to all remaining households<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Meanwhile Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE) expects to have restored power to the remaining households and businesses left without power by Storm \u00c9owyn on Monday.<\/p>\n

Alex Houston told BBC News that fewer than 100 customers are still without electricity, mostly in County Fermanagh.<\/p>\n

Teams are currently in the area completing repairs and all homes are expected to have power by Monday night.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Further shortages for ‘safety’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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\"Engineers,<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

NIE brought in 350 additional engineers from across the UK and Europe<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Thousands still without power in Republic <\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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In the Republic of Ireland about 30,000 homes, farms, schools and businesses were still without power on Monday evening, according to ESB Networks.<\/p>\n

Power was restored to another 2,000 properties throughout Monday.<\/p>\n

Fewer than 400 premises are now without water.<\/p>\n

Crews from Austria, Finland, France, the UK, Germany, Netherlands and Norway, have come over to help restore power.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jayne McCormack BBC News NI political correspondent PA Images Storm \u00c9owyn brought down trees and damaged power lines across Northern Ireland Some customers in Northern Ireland could have to wait up to another fortnight to have their internet and phone connectivity restored after Storm \u00c9owyn, a Stormont politician has said. DUP assembly member Deborah Erskine […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[742,1210,8377],"class_list":["post-22394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-n-ireland","tag-broadband","tag-fix","tag-fortnight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22394"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22396,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22394\/revisions\/22396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}