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Residents in the tiny rural Gwynedd (Wales) village of Llangwnnadl have been left without access to fixed broadband and phone services for several weeks. Local news reports claim that the situation began after a telecoms pole replacement was carried out by Openreach, which is unusual as normally such work is carried out to fix and not cause a fault.
According to the BBC News, the situation, which impacts around 40 homes across the small community, started on 4th July and is currently ongoing. Outdoor mobile coverage in the area appears to be quite variable, so it’s likely that some people may not be able to rely upon that as an alternative (experiences will vary between mobile providers and locations).
Openreach has acknowledged how “frustrating” the issue is and said that their “engineers are working to get everyone back up and running as quickly as possible“, albeit seemingly without providing any further details. ISPreview has also contacted the network operator in the hope of clarifying the unusual cause.
Openreach has previously informed ISPreview that it can take around 20 days to fix damaged poles, such as after a major storm. But over the years we’ve seen examples where, in rare cases of extreme damage, rural areas have been left to wait for several months before repairs (here, here and here). Such long waits can stem from a variety of issues, such as with the need to seek prior permission for traffic management, safety considerations and limited local resources etc.
Resolving such problems in urban areas is normally a lot quicker and a downed pole can often be corrected within only a matter of hours or a few short days, but even these may be dependent upon some of the aforementioned caveats. We will update again once Openreach has responded.