Islands 'Offline' After JT Fault

Sunday, 12 July 2020 21:49

Around two thirds of islanders have been left without broadband or working phones after a technical fault with JT’s network.

The company’s network went down at 6:55pm on Sunday night.

It’s affected homes, businesses, and the emergency services - with Jersey’s Police and Fire Service warning they couldn't answer 999 calls from JT numbers until the problem is fixed.

We are experiencing issues with JT landlines, you won’t be able to call 999 from your JT landline at present. JT are looking into this to rectify the problem. You can still phone 999 from a mobile phone. At the moment we believe the issue is just with JT. We’ll keep you updated.
— States of Jersey Police (@JerseyPolice) July 12, 2020

The problems haven’t been isolated to Jersey though, with JT customers in Guernsey reporting the same issues.

Both islands’ government websites are among those taken offline by the outage.

Many cash machines also stopped working, and retailers left unable to accept card payments because of their reliance on the JT network.

Passengers due to fly from Jersey to London Gatwick last night with easyJet were delayed outside security, as Jersey Airport’s check-in systems run off JT’s network.

JT says its engineers have been working through the night to fix the problem, which was resolved at around 1am on Monday morning.

It’s not yet known what caused the disruption.

JT Managing Director, Daragh McDermott, has apologised to all its customers in the Channel Islands:

“I’d like to apologise to our customers for the problem with JT services yesterday evening.

"JT’s networks are now working normally again after the problem, which affected landlines, mobiles, and internet services in Jersey and Guernsey. Our engineers got to work immediately and made sure services were running again as quickly as they could. We are now isolating the root cause and putting measures in place to prevent it happening again."