BUSINESS ground to a
halt in many parts of Inishowen yesterday after a
major eircom failure left thousands of people
without phone and internet connections.
Householders and local traders woke up yesterday to
a major headache that left them disconnected from
their customers, families and important services.
The communications black-out affected Quigley's
Point, Bridgend, Ballygorman, Moville, Muff,
Bridgend, Carndonagh, Clonmany, Fahan, Greencastle,
Moville and parts of Buncrana.
Many people were angry at the duration of the
problem and were forced to rely on their mobile
phones as back-up.
An eircom spokesperson told InishowenNews.com: "We
had a major transmission failure this morning on one
of our major cables which resulted in a loss of
telephone and in Internet service to a number of
customers."
The spokesperson said the problem had been rectified
and services restored to "the majority" of customers
by around 2.30pm.
However, services remained sporadic in many areas
including Greencastle and Moville with interruptions
still continuing late into the evening.
Among those affected yesterday were this site,
InishowenNews.com, which operates from the
Greencastle area.
Manager and web designer Brendan Deehan said the
problem seriously hampered businesses relying on
landline telephones and the internet.
"The phones were down for most of the day but even
when service did resume it would disconnect again
without warning in mid-conversation with customers.
It was a frustrating day and I would hope eircom
would ensure there wasn't a repeat of it any time
soon," he said. |