BT’s Scottish Director says Shetland’s internet connections were disrupted for a 10 day period earlier this month due to technical breakdowns.

In a letter to Shetland MSP, Tavish Scott, BT’s Brendan Dick says problems on the Scottish mainland and in Orkney caused disruptions affecting Shetland. BT are apologising for the interruptions to local people’s internet services. BT say that Shetland broadband services were first affected on the 29th October when a main distribution node in Edinburgh failed.

A second problem occurred on the 2nd November when BT’s equipment in the radio station at Sanday in Orkney was damaged by lightning. So from the 2nd November Shetlanders experienced either slow internet connections or couldn’t connect at all. BT says these faults were finally cleared just after midnight on the 12th November.

Tavish Scott said;

“BT’s problems over a 10 day period caused many Shetland households and businesses real problems. So I am looking to the company to invest in securing greater reliability as we all depend on these services. We take the internet totally for granted now-a-days in the way we do when turning on a tap or the light switch.”

BT is also saying that its investment in Shetland’s fibre optic cable connections to the Scottish mainland should help. Brendan Dick writes in his letter to Tavish Scott;

“In your letter you mention the Faroese cable. I can confirm that we have leased fibre capacity on the cable and expect to be using it for Shetland internet and voice traffic from late next summer onwards subject to operational tests being completed on time. This is in addition to our own investment in sub-sea fibre in the Orkney / Shetland area, and in addition we will also be retaining the radio links so we will see improved levels of resilience in the network.”

Tavish Scott added;

“This must be a step forward. But Shetland broadband experts have pointed out that other supplies, such as Cable & Wireless, have not had the same problems in recent weeks as BT. No company is immune from technical faults, but Shetland does expect a better standard of service than we’ve had from BT in November. I look to BT to get its service to Shetland up to the standard we need so that local people and Island businesses can have confidence in the service they pay for. I also want its system to be much quicker in finding faults, and for the reporting of faults to produce answers and fast solutions. Many people were really annoyed that they got the brush-off from BT when they phoned in about a fault. BT’s systems need to be more responsive in future.”