COMMUNICATIONS across the country were disrupted yesterday when BT’s broadband and phone network crashed.
Glasgow, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Manchester and London were among the cities affected who lost their service for around two hours yesterday afternoon.
BT later said there was no evidence to suggest the outage was caused by a malicious attack, stating that it had been caused by major technical issues.
The website downdetector.co.uk, which monitors internet failures, reported thousands of cases across the country.
Many customers took to social media to vent their frustration under the hashtag #BTdown, which trended on Twitter for much of the afternoon.
The outage came as an islands MP confirmed that three senior BT and Openreach figures would take questions at a public meeting to discuss broadband problems on Skye.
Ian Blackford, SNP MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber, will host the meeting, which he set up after he met BT bosses at Westminster, on Friday in Portree. , following problems that have beset the island’s service since before Christmas.
Mark Dames, BT Scotland’s head of policy and public affairs, will meet locals, along with Robert Thorburn, BT’s next generation access manager, and Mark Crichton, Openreach senior manager for Ross, Skye and Lochaber.
Blackford said: “Ross, Skye and Lochaber currently ranks 647th out of 650 UK constituencies for broadband performance.
“We need to find a way of achieving superfast broadband for all of our communities.
“It is a necessity in the digital age that those of us who live and work in rural areas have access to these capabilities so that our businesses can compete on a level playing field.”
Blackford is also a member of the cross-party BIG group of MPs, which last week published a report calling for an end to underinvestment by BT and to the monopoly enjoyed by Openreach.
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