Hapless Network Rail contractors KO broadband in Uxbridge

Hapless Network Rail contractors drove a pile through 30 cable ducts, cutting phone, broadband services and many cell towers in the Uxbridge, Middlesex - potentially knocking services out until next week.

Services were cut on Wednesday, with Openreach customers reportedly being told it could take more than a week to fix. Up to 15,000 customers could be affected.

A spokeswoman from Network Rail said: “We are sorry that we have caused people problems with their phone and internet connections today.

"While work was taking place in the early hours of Wednesday morning, we damaged cables which are used by a number of different communications providers."

She said the cables were "not highlighted in the thorough surveys" it carried out prior to the work. "We are working to help BT’s Openreach division to get connections back up and running as soon as possible.”

Openreach has said its engineers are on site working 24/7 to get the cables fixed. However, because of its proximity to the rail line the repair is not expected to be straight forward. No estimated completion date has yet been given.

A spokeswoman said: “We’re very sorry for the interruption to some phone and broadband services in the West Drayton area." She added: “We will get services back up and running as soon as possible.”

One customer reported that cash machines are also down as a result of the catastrophe.

Customers complained on Twiiter:

@BTCare so I've just been told that due to lines being drilled through the whole of west drayton is out of BT action for 10 days?? True?

— Lucy Dartford (@LucyDartfordPR) October 21, 2016

@Ofcom BT have had an outage in Uxbridge since 9am Weds, expecting 6 days. Are they obligated to compensate customers? @btcare won't answer.

— Dave Curran (@DaveSixtyFour) October 20, 2016

@SkyHelpTeam @networkrail Uxbridge/West Drayton shambles. What about all of the businesses who rely on you? #outage #networkrailcowboys

— harri90 (@CarlHarris09) October 20, 2016