Isle of Man homes remain without broadband after storm hit network

Cable boxes connecting to customer's homes were damaged in the storm.

Some homes which lost phone and internet access in a recent thunderstorm on the Isle of Man might not be reconnected until next week, Manx Telecom has said.

About 500 customers lost connections due to lightning strikes on Monday.

Chief technology officer Hugo van Zyl said engineers were working overtime to make repairs, with most faults specific to each building.

The company was "throwing everything we have at the situation", he added.

Several lightning strikes hit homes and telecommunications poles during the early hours of Monday, leaving one property in the island's capital uninhabitable.

'Hard going'

Despite repair efforts beginning straight away, about 230 customers are thought to still be without broadband access, with the majority of issues centred around areas in Douglas and Onchan.

"We were just really unfortunate with these strikes that came in areas where there is a concentration of customers, and a surge through the copper network just destroyed things," Mr van Zyl said.

Manx Telecom's engineers have been working overtime and will continue through the weekend to rebuild the service, with the hope of having the network fully restored by Wednesday, he added.

Urging those affected to log faults as soon as possible to arrange for a visit from an engineer, the firm said its call centre staff were working "as swiftly as they can" to deal with customers.

Admitting it was "hard going at the moment", Mr van Zyl said the process was not straight forward because as engineers had to test each line individually to determine faults.