Businesses across the country have been hit by another day of limited internet access after BT Broadband and Plusnet customers were left unable to access many websites.
The power outage causing the problems on Thursday was a separate issue to that which left a million BT customers – one tenth of its total base – without any access for hours on Wednesday.
A BT spokesperson said: “We’re sorry that some BT and Plusnet customers are having problems connecting to some internet services this morning.
“This is due to Telehouse North, one of our internet connection partners in the Docklands, suffering a substantial power failure. This is affecting BT and other providers.
“We are redirecting traffic to reduce the impact on customers and the issue is now affecting less than 5% of customers’ internet usage.
“Engineers are on site and we hope will be able to fix the problem shortly.”
A Telehouse spokesperson said: “We are aware that there has been an issue with the tripping of a circuit breaker within Telehouse North that has affected a specific and limited group of customers within the building.
“The problem has been investigated and the solution identified. Our engineers are working with our customers on the resolution right now.”
Wednesday’s problem was caused by a power outage at the Equinix Telecity Harbour Exchange in London.
A Virgin Media Business expansion, meanwhile, is to connect thousands of companies in business parks to its ‘Project Lightning’ network.
BT, the UK’s largest internet service provider, was warned by MPs just two days ago that its Openreach network arm could be split away from the main company if it did not invest in it more heavily.
UK telecoms regulator Ofcom will make that decision.
BT responded by saying it had invested more than £1billion a year in its infrastructure.
Openreach provides more than 25m telecoms lines across the UK, servicing BT Broadband, Plusnet and competitors such as TalkTalk and Sky.