Family at 'wits' end' over broadband outage

Matt Rains said his children's education suffered because of the outage

A family from Derby have said they are at their wits' end after being left without broadband or a landline for more than eight weeks.

Matt Rains said the service at his home on Westbourne Park in Mackworth was cut in July, which is thought to be down to the severing of a cable connecting two telegraph poles.

The 49-year-old said he had been in repeated contact with his internet provider Sky and also with Openreach, which operates the network, but still has no service.

Openreach apologised to residents for "third party damage to our cable in Westbourne Park" and said work to restore the connection was under way.

Engineers were due to start work to replace the damaged cable on Tuesday

When Mr Rains first reported the fault, he said he was told by his provider Sky it would take up to two weeks to fix.

"We were quite OK with that at the time because we were going away for a fortnight... but when we came back after two weeks it was still not fixed.

"We were then told another week but it was still not sorted. We're now nearly nine weeks in and it's still not fixed," he said.

The dad of two said he was also concerned about the impact the outage was having on his children's education.

"My son who's 11 has just started at secondary school. He can't do any online learning because doing it on his mobile by mobile data isn't suitable.

"My daughter, who's at Joseph Wright College studying art, can't print anything off on the printer because of the wi-fi and she can't download stuff because there's no broadband, so I'm angry," he said.

Openreach has apologised to residents and said work to restore the connection was under way

An elderly neighbour on Mr Rains's street, who did not want to be named, also told the BBC the outage has had a big effect and wanted those responsible to "hurry up and get this sorted".

In a statement, an Openreach spokesperson apologised for the delay "following third party damage to our cable in Westbourne Park" and said engineers would start to replace the damaged cable on Tuesday.

"We know how frustrating and disruptive it is to not have broadband, so we'll get this done as quickly as possible. We'd like to thank residents for their patience.

"If you're experiencing issues with your broadband, please let your service provider know [the company you pay your bill to] and they will get in touch with us," the Openreach spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for Sky said a credit had already been applied to the customer's account and the issue had been "escalated to the highest point" until resolved.