In an example of just how fragile our communications infrastructure can sometimes be, a flood at the Paddington (London) telephone exchange today not only knocked out the phones and broadband connections for a great many homes and businesses in London, but had knock-on effects for much of the rest of the country too.
In a statement, BT said that “Tens of thousands” of its customers had been affected and it couldn’t predict when services would be restored.
The flood, which also caused a fire (I’m presuming not a big one given how much water was around) started early this morning and the fire brigade attended at 7:30am.
The knock on effects caused problems for many UK telecoms and broadband providers including Pipex, TalkTalk (owned by the Carphone Warehouse) and others. Mobile phone communications were also affected as companies tried to conduct business transactions in the four day week before the UKs long Easter bank holiday weekend.
BT published a list of no less than 437 telephone exchanges around the country that had been experiencing problems because of the sudden flood.
The UK has been welcoming the arrival of spring with warm sunny weather followed by rain, gales and snow.
Source : BBC
