Mobile phones crash as digger severs cable

Mobile-phone users in the south-east, the south and parts of the west were without service yesterday after parts of the Eircell network crashed when a cable in Co Waterford was severed by a Waterford County Council sub-contractor.

The crash is the sixth time in four weeks that a contractor has broken a cable system belonging to Eircom.

The company is becoming increasingly annoyed at the crashes and said it was now considering the legal position on interference with its network.

The crash affected some 10,000 land-lines in the south-east. Eircell mobile communications, which are routed through the fibre-optic cables buried in the ground, were also hit. A company spokesman said it was difficult to estimate how many mobile-users had been effected "as we don't know how many phones are in the area at any one time", but estimated it was between 20,000 and 30,000.

It is believed mobile services in Cos Mayo, Tipperary, Wexford, Clare and Cork were affected, although not all users in these counties would have suffered loss of service.

The breakage happened shortly after 9 a.m. when a crew sub-contracted to Waterford County Council began work on a water pipe close to the fibre-optic cable.

It is understood the contractors were informed of the presence of the fibre-optic cable, but it was struck by the bucket of the JCB.

According to the Eircom spokesman, however, nobody had contacted the company to ask the exact whereabouts of the cable, or to notify Eircom that the work was being undertaken.

Last year an Eircom fault which coincided with flooding at an Eircell switching station led to large parts of Dublin being left without land-lines or the 087 network.

Members of the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland have complained of lost business which they claim is due to the crashes.

The breakage occurred on the same day that a report on rail safety said that cable-laying by contractors was causing serious damage to railway embankments, endangering rail safety.