Credit card chaos as phones fail

Tuesday 13th January 2009, 2:58PM GMT.

THOUSANDS of phone lines went down last night causing frustration for shoppers and motorists trying to use credit cards to pay for food and fuel.

The problems, which began some time after 5 pm, were still continuing in some places today and there was confusion as to which telecom firm was responsible for the network failures.

Cable & Wireless admitted a problem in Guernsey that affected business customers. Jersey Telecom said that they had not experienced a difficulty.

However, the chief executives of the Co-op and the group that owns Checkers supermarkets both said that they had been told by their own IT professionals that the problem originated from JT.

Read the full story in the Jersey Evening Post. Click here for subscription details. Individual editions are also available online.

1
Jersey Gal

January 13, 2009 at 3:55 pm

I am with Jersey Telecoms and i had no signal for nearly 2 hours. I was also in London at the time and tried ringing various home numbers from a payphone who i know are also using JT and could not get anything.

Report abuse
2
Keith

January 13, 2009 at 4:58 pm

I work as a property manager for a large residential development and telephone contact is vital. I noticed that my landline was not operating at 0830 this morning and immediately called the JT helpline. They ran a diagnostic on my line and informed me that it was fine and the fault must be with my phone. I then purchased a replacement phone but the fault persisted. I again called the helpline and was told there was a fault somewhere on the line and that until the engineer attended ( this would take approx 2 days as they were not busy ? ) they could not be sure, this would cost me £47.50 for the 1st half hour and £22.50 thereafter per half hour.

At no time was I told that they were aware of a fault. Does this mean that they will refund me for the phone and time spent shopping for it? How can they not know of a fault affecting 5000 people.

Report abuse
3
Ken W.

January 13, 2009 at 7:17 pm

If you are not happy with Jersey Telecom switch to another provider.

Other operators offer just as good, if not better coverage, and way cheaper call costs, even on pre-pay. What’s more, no need to change your number.

Jersey Telecom needs competition on the landline business now. Company should have been sold off to private enterprise years ago.

Report abuse
4
Keith

January 15, 2009 at 5:49 am

Yes but dont the other operators use JT cables & fibreoptics, if so then the fualt would still have been present.Incidentally I still don’t have a live landline at work, residents are having to call my mobile at inflated cost.

Have JT commented on this?

Report abuse
5
Jersey Gal

January 15, 2009 at 3:46 pm

I am perfectly happy with JT – but they must of realise that some of their services were disrupted and not turn a blind eye!

Report abuse
6
dave brown

January 15, 2009 at 5:40 pm

we all use this technology more and more. i for one only have a small amount of cash at any given time.
but have we become too reliant on mobile phones and card payments?
phone bill big enough at the moment?
how much to replace the systems ?
the sky maybe the limit for a totaly uninterupted service.
mind you it drives me mad not been able to get the full sky tv+phone and broadband for cheap.

Report abuse
7
Ken W.

January 15, 2009 at 6:35 pm

They keep going on about how good there services are but what about broadband here at just 2mb.

8mb is common in the UK and worldwide greater than 50mb.

So just how good are JT?

Report abuse