BT outage kills phone lines in Eastbourne and Brighton

BT phone lines were down for 20,000 customers in Brighton and Eastbourne this morning, cutting phone contact to businesses and homes and even preventing a patient from getting through to the Royal Sussex County Hospital.

A power cut in the Eastbourne Telephone exchange caused the landline outage that was first logged just after 9am this morning. At time of writing both outages are ongoing, though BT says that engineers are on site and has promised fixes for around lunchtime.

Sussex schools, wine merchants and the local hospital were out of landline phone contact and many took to Twitter to ask what was going on.

"Hello BT, our phone line is out where we work (& for other surrounding BT customers), is there a line problem in Brighton?" asked one. The telco was, meanwhile, updating its known-faults status page.

Brighton app company @Brightec tweeted:

If you're trying to get through to us by phone, phone lines in our area are not working. BT are investigating, so for now please email.

@Alacimiss tweeted:

@ArgusBizness brighton and eastbourne businesses experiencing major BT outage this morning. Many not able to connect to customers by phone.

A spokesman for BT confirmed that a "power outage at the Eastbourne exchange was impacting some 20,000 customers in Eastbourne and Brighton areas with loss of phone service. Engineers are on site". ®