VM took out power in the Oldham area(?)

There as been a high voltage fault occured in the local town I live in. Someone said they heard a loud bang. Most power to the town is down, and not due to come back until 7am.

What's interesting is that at the same time VM's Cable services as gone down at the same time. VM is aiming to repair the situation by 4am.

Maybe showing my ignorance here but is it not possible VM is down because of the power outage rather than VM caused the power outage because it went down at the same time?

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

Maybe showing my ignorance here but is it not possible VM is down because of the power outage rather than VM caused the power outage because it went down at the same time?

I believe that it is more likely the power outage caused the Virgin outage, rather than vice versa. We have UPS protected power here, which reveals that the local Virgin Media network is reliant on mains power. In the event of a power cut, our Virgin boxes stay up but there is no signal for them to operate on. Our Zen FTTC connection continues to work without mains power, as there is battery backup in the Openreach FTTC cabinet.


It is possible for Virgin Media to cause a power cut, but this would require something fairly catastrophic and unusual, such as their civil engineering contractor hitting a power cable with a mechanical excavator.

In reply to a post by bowdon:

There as been a high voltage fault occured in the local town I live in. Someone said they heard a loud bang. Most power to the town is down, and not due to come back until 7am.

What's interesting is that at the same time VM's Cable services as gone down at the same time. VM is aiming to repair the situation by 4am.

VM use mains power, the same mains power that's down. The only things that have battery backup are the MSANs that deliver your phone service.

The 4am repair time from VM is just an automated estimate. The VM services will come back when the power has been restored.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

The only things that have battery backup are the MSANs that deliver your phone service.

Am I correct in saying that is is a regulatory requirement for landline telephone service (and services akin to landline telephone service, such an Openreach's Fibre Voice Access) to have battery backup?

In reply to a post by David_W:

Am I correct in saying that is is a regulatory requirement for landline telephone service (and services akin to landline telephone service, such an Openreach's Fibre Voice Access) to have battery backup?

Ya.