BT working to restore comms after Paddington fire

BT engineers are still working to restore telecommunications services to tens of thousands of people nationwide after flooding and a fire at one of the company's London exchanges.

According to BT, flooding at the Paddington exchange on Wednesday morning led to an electrical fire, which knocked out landline, broadband and mobile services for an unknown number of people in London and further afield.

On Thursday morning, the company was unable to quantify precisely how many people were affected. This is because BT sells wholesale connectivity to other operators, who then resell that fixed and mobile connectivity to end users, and the outage has also hit those companies and their users.

BT said it has removed the floodwater from the exchange. However, it does not have a timescale for the restoration of landline and broadband services to those affected by the outage.

"Customers can get recorded updates by calling 0800 1690199," the company said in a Thursday morning statement. BT added, however, that those needing to make calls to the emergency services "are advised to do so by using their mobile phone, or alternatively by using a friend or neighbour's working phone".