Sky and TalkTalk broadband hit by massive ongoing outage

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Cable repairs aren’t expected to be completed until this evening

Sky broadband (and phone) users have been hit by a major outage in the Sussex area, and the problem may not be fixed for some folks until this evening, with TalkTalk subscribers also affected.

The cause? Apparently extensive damage was caused to fibre optic cables by digging works carried out by a third party, who apparently speared some key cables with a fence post.

Sky says there are seven separate breaks in fibre cables which need to be repaired.

At the time of writing, the most recent tweet from the firm notes that several exchanges are back online now, although ‘stability may be [an] issue’ with connections.

A previous tweet stated that service should be restored for everyone by this evening.

So that means some Sky subscribers could still have a fair bit of downtime on their hands, for both broadband and phone service.

According to Sky, the affected areas include the following:

Baldslow, Battle, Beckley, Bexhill, Brede, Brightling, Brookland, Castleham, Cooden, Crowhurst, Guestling, Hastings, Iden, Lydd, Ninfield, Northiam, New Romney, Peasmarsh, Rye, Sedlescombe, Staplecross, Wittersham, Eastbourne, Hampden Park, Alfriston, Newhaven, Peacehaven, Polegate, Pevensey Marina, Pevensey, Seaford, East Dean.

TalkTalk downdown

As mentioned, this issue has also affected TalkTalk broadband, phone and TV services, with the ISP stating that customers connected to the Seaford, Newhaven, Herstmonceux, Ninfield and Polegate exchanges have been hit by downtime.

On its service status dashboard, TalkTalk says that Openreach currently has a team of engineers repairing the cables, and the situation is the same as with Sky when it comes to an estimated timeframe for resolution.

TalkTalk noted: “We have been advised that repairs are due to be completed early evening, and continue to keep in contact with Openreach for further updates.”

Via: Trusted Reviews

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Darren Allan

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).