A Highland councillor says a “slow” response by BT to resolve a critical landline phone outage caused by a lightning strike in Rosehall has raised safety concerns.
Michael Baird, who represents North, West and Central Sutherland, lives in the village, which was affected by severe storms around August 12.
The subsequent lightning caused a power outage in the area, leading to a communications blackout.
This left many of the 100 residents of Rosehall and neighbouring Altass without any means of communication due to “patchy” mobile coverage.
Landlines are very important given the majority of the residents are older and need to make appointments or contact relatives in an emergency.
Mr Baird said: “We had thunder and lightning and as a result of that communications across the area starting going down including telephone, landlines and internet access.
“It was only when I started trying to phone some of my friends in Rosehall, that I discovered their lines were always busy.
“I reported it to BT at the time and was told that engineer wouldn’t be out until Wednesday (August 17).”
Following the call with BT, Mr Baird says engineers were working at the telephone exchange near the Invercassley Tea Rooms in Rosehall and had resolved the issue.
However, on Saturday, August 20, the lines had went down for some of the residents again.
This was concerning for many residents as this was their primary source of communication with the outside world.
‘A landline is key for many residents’
Mr Baird assumed that following the repairs on August 17, that the matter was closed.
After the phone lines went down for the second time, Mr Baird again contacted the relevant operators but was told they couldn’t find the issue.
Mr Baird said: “We keep impressing upon them that it is an external fault in the system as the people are still hearing a dialing tone but cannot make of receive calls.
“In some instances people cant phone out and they are not receiving calls in as the line is busy.
“Its very inconvenient for members of the community and for businesses like the Highland Shooting Centre, which cannot make bookings if the phones are down.
“For emergency purposes having a landline is key for many of the residents.”
In such a small community with limited mobile signal, a lot of the residents rely on their landline to contact the other people and family.
Mr Baird recalls a friend who needs his landline to contact his vet about his two rescue dogs, who require special care.
Mr Baird wants BT to be more responsive when it comes to helping address connectivity issues in small communities with older populations.
Its been confirmed by Mr Baird that an engineer has since been out to inspect the issue on Monday, which is believed to be with the telephone exchange box in Rosehall.
A BT Group spokeswoman said: “This morning, a problem with a telephone exchange in Rosehall in Inverness resulted in a number of local customers being unable to make or receive landline calls in the area. BT engineers have been working throughout the afternoon and I can confirm that the situation has now been resolved. We apologise to any customers that were affected by this temporary issue.”
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