Repairs to subsea cables continue as temporary solution restores connections

Phone and internet services have been restored through a “temporary solution” while subsea engineers continue repair work on the damaged cables.

BT said its team had been working “flat out” to restore connections following yesterday’s communications blackout.

The outage was caused by damage to the Faroese Telecom cables linking Shetland with the Scottish mainland, via Orkney and Faroe.

“While both cable links are being repaired by subsea engineers, engineers were able to reconnect all services via a temporary solution on Thursday afternoon.

“Further testing and monitoring overnight has shown that broadband services have remained stable, and we will continue to monitor this.

“As a precaution, we have specialist teams in Shetland with satellite backup links should either of the subsea cables fail while they are being repaired.

Faroese Telecom expect to complete the permanent repair to the first damaged cable by this weekend.

“The second damaged cable will then be examined by Faroese Telecom’s specialist subsea engineers.”