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Worthing telephone wipe-out explained 02/07/2008

BT revealed the cause of May 31's town-wide phone crisis in response to a letter from Worthing West MP Peter Bottomley to BT boss Ben Verwaayen, who, coincidentally, stood down as chief executive of BT just six days after the Worthing phone crisis.

While the original problem was a failure of EDF Energy's power supply to the Worthing exchange, a faulty starter motor in the standby engine rendered the exchange literally powerless.

Jim Small, assistant to the chairman and chief executive, wrote that the motor had been replaced and he was "confident that there will be no repetition in the future".

He added that a portable electricity generator had now been acquired by the exchange as a further precaution.

BT spokeswoman Emma Littlejohn said the power cut to the exchange was "quite unusual".

Backup backed up

She said: "It was the actual exchange rather than a pole or fault underground.

"In normal circumstances, what we would hope to happen would be the back-up would turn on so people wouldn't notice any problem while we fix the main problem, but on this occasion it didn't happen.

"There's now a backup to the backup.

"Being aware of the problems people suffered, they obviously feel it's necessary at the moment to have a second backup while they look at what happened.

"We try very hard to learn from any problems that happen to improve service at other exchanges."

source - Sussex Express

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