Around 2500 BT customers were left without a telephone service after a cable-cutting blunder.

BT said it had been working "flat out" to repair the cable, which was severed on Wednesday afternoon, affecting users in the Milton Keynes area. It declined to reveal if the damage had been caused by a worker at a rival telecomms company or by one of its own lackeys.

According to BT, the cable was unlikely to be fixed until late yesterday evening– depriving local businesses of phone or Internet services for around 36 hours.

And although locals are unable to get on the blower, many residents have apparently already found ways to complain about the noise caused by BT's digging repair work in the street.

"People do dig up cables inadvertently, and it then takes a lot of work to fix the problem," one BT representative said. ®