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A remote set of islands off the cost of Scotland was mysteriously cut off from the outside world on Thursday, with phones and internet connections not working after damage to an undersea cable.
Local police on the Shetland Islands said that there was a “complete outage” in the islands and that “phones, internet and computers are not usable.”
It said engineers were urgently working to fix the outage.
A spokesperson for BT, which runs much of the UK telecoms network, told the BBC there was a “break” in the undersea cable that connects the islands to the mainland UK via northern Scotland.
The cable, known as SHEFA-2, is highlighted on the map below. Given its small population, the Shetlands have relatively weak connectivity to the outside world, meaning it can be isolated by a single cable breach.
The outage came after an another undersea cable to Shetland, connecting it to the still-more-remote Faroe Island, was also damaged, the BBC reported.
More significant links — like those between the US and mainland Europe — have more than a dozen separate cables, meaning a single break is less likely to result in an outage.
“Engineers are working to divert services via other routes as soon as possible and we’ll provide further updates. Our external subsea provider is also looking to restore their link quickly,” BT said.
Neither police nor BT gave a reason for the cable breaking.
Around 23,000 people live on the islands.
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Remote islands off the coast of Scotland mysteriously lost all phone and internet connection after an undersea cable was cut – Business Insider Africa
