Manx Telecom broadband outage 'not regulatory breach'

Up to 7,000 customers were left without broadband services during the outage

A broadband outage which left about 7,000 people offline for several days did not breach regulatory obligations, the industry watchdog has said.

The Communications Commission's investigation into the fault in August found Manx Telecom took "all reasonably practicable steps" to solve the issue.

It recommended the company make "further investment into its core network" to prevent a reoccurrence.

The firm said it had brought forward planned investment because of Covid-19.

In its ruling on the handling of the fault, which occurred on 27 August, the commission said the problem was caused by a "silent fault" within the provider's hardware systems, which took until 3 September to locate and fix.

'Known fault'

It said the usual practice of diverting traffic away while repairs were carried out did not take place because a fear of duplicating the problem on another part of the network.

It concluded that while the company took "all reasonably practicable steps to bring the network back online after the outage occurred", the issue was now a "known fault" and any similar outages "would likely constitute a breach of licence conditions".

It said the commission has made several specific recommendations to the firm, but proposed Manx Telecom "make further investment into its core network... to prevent a similar failure from occurring in future".

A spokesman for the firm said it "had already decided to bring forward planned investment" in response to changes in internet usage as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

He added that the upgrading of some equipment had also been accelerated by a year in response to the report.