Sky wipes Dunstable off the map

Broadband outage blamed on broken fibre

Broadband supplier Sky has put the Bedfordshire town of Dunstable back into the Dark Age by wiping out its broadband connection.

Sky has said nothing officially, although tech support personnel at first blamed local problems until one call centre operative last night hinted that the problem could be national.

Posters on Sky's support forums are keeping calm so far. One said Easyjet had told him that a "broken fibre" has taken out services Dunstable, Luton, Hemel Hempstead and Leagrave.

Orange subscribers are apparently on the same exchange and one at least is beginning to freak out through XBox withdrawals.

We asked Sky what's going and came away with a promise of information soon.

We might not mind so much but THINQ deputy Editor, Stewart Meagher is based in Dunstable. "Even most of the pubs are on Sky, so I'm a bit scuppered," said Meagher this morning. "It's like going back to the 15th Century here."