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‘Substantial’ power failure at Telehouse North causes Internet issues for BT, Plusnet subscribers.
BT on Thursday apologised after broadband customers suffered a second morning of outages caused by power supply problems at another data centre used by the telco.
According to a heat map at downdetector.co.uk, BT users in major cities up and down the country reported problems this morning with Internet connectivity, with the highest concentrations in London, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Nottingham.
BT’s own Website lists ongoing problems in multiple exchange areas.
"We’re sorry that some BT and Plusnet customers are having problems connecting to some Internet services this morning," said BT, in an email to Total Telecom.
"This is due to Telehouse North, one of our Internet connection partners in the Docklands, suffering a substantial power failure. This is affecting BT and other providers," the telco said. "We are redirecting traffic to reduce the impact on customers and the issue is now affecting less than 5% of customers’ Internet usage."
In a statement, Telehouse said a circuit breaker was tripped at its Telehouse North site, affecting "a specific and limited group of customers within the building," and that a solution has been identified.
"Our engineers are working with our customers on the resolution right now," Telehouse said.
"We hope we will be able to fix the problem shortly," BT added.
Thursday’s outage comes a day after a separate power failure at the Equinix-owned LD8 data centre caused widespread issues for BT customers on Wednesday. LD8 is located less than two miles south of Telehouse North.
According to BT, at the peak of yesterday’s outage, one in 10 attempts to load a Website was unsuccessful.
The outage "impacted a limited number of customers and service was promptly restored," said Equinix’s U.K. managing director Russell Poole, in a statement.
Equinix engineers diagnosed the root cause of the issue as a faulty uninterrupted power supply (UPS) system, he said, adding that "we regret any inconvenience this has caused."
Update: Total Telecom received the following updated statement from BT at 13:45.
We apologise to those BT customers who had problems connecting to some Internet services this morning. Internet usage is now back to normal for consumer and small business customers. A small number of larger businesses may still be experiencing some limited Internet access. Engineers should have these fixed soon.
