A lightning strike may be the cause of an internet fault which has left business owners and residents in an Aberdeenshire town offline.
Banchory Golf Club has been left unable to review its online bookings as it prepares for today’s Royal Deeside Golf Classic after the local broadband service failed.
Grant Considine Chartered Accountants, in the town’s High Street, has also been left without vital internet access, while the organisers of the Banchory and Inverurie beer festivals have had to relocate to Aberdeen.
Last night a spokesman for BT Openreach – which manages broadband infrastructure in the town – said the issue was a broken “green box” cabinet which had affected about 50 properties.
Fibre optic services were not affected in the area.
Banchory Golf Club secretary, Ann Smart, said: “It has been down since Tuesday. It is all a bit of a nightmare. It is frustrating.
“We have the Royal Deeside Golf Classic on Friday, we have to collate that. We have people booking online for opens.
“They are able to do it but we don’t know if they are doing it or not because we can’t see.
“We are very lucky we have got a chap who lives next door who allowed us to use his service.”
The Banchory Beer Festival is taking place from August 12-14 and organisers Mungo and Guy Finlayson said it had been a “hassle” having to relocate from their Banchory base at such a busy period.
Mungo said: “There is stuff we need to do online, it is just not good. I am trying to write adverts and get in touch with staff. And the 3G is struggling too.
“Three days is a long time, we have had to bring everything into Aberdeen to get internet.”
Officer manager at Grant Considine, Jackie Riach, said: “Most people these days are communicating by e-mails, but we also have online services.
“We operate payroll and have to make submissions to HMRC, we are not able to do it.
“The longer it goes on the worse it gets. We are into the third day now, it is terrible.”
A BT Openreach spokesman said: “A small number of customers in the Banchory area may be experiencing problems in accessing the internet.
“Suspected lightning damage to one of our green street cabinets is being investigated by our engineers.
“We’re working to fix the fault as soon as possible and we’re sorry for any inconvenience.”
A north-east politician claimed the problem in Banchory highlighted the wider issue of poor connectivity in rural Aberdeenshire.
Conservative MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Alexander Burnett, said: “I have been in contact today with BT’s consumer executive level complaints team to voice the concerns of many of my constituents who have reported problems with broadband coverage in the Banchory area.
“I am told this has gone on for around 30 hours, with some reporting that it could be a further 20 hours before it is resolved.
“This will be causing widespread disruption for many local businesses in the area. There is a bigger issue here to be addressed in terms of rural broadband provision.”
Last night a spokesman for BT Openreach stressed that although it looks after infrastructure, it was not the internet provider for every property affected.
