A potentially life-threatening loss of broadband services will be top of the agenda at Colvend and Southwick Community Council tonight.
Dozens of households in the community were hit last month when an Openreach cabinet sited at the Rockcliffe roadend failed.
The outage lasted for 10 full days – from October 14 to 24 – and affected elderly residents without mobile phones particularly badly.
They were left without any phone contact with the outside world because of a landline switch from analogue to digital.
That meant anyone in distress without a mobile could not phone 999 – or ask for help on the care call alarm system.
The community council described the response from Openreach as “lamentable” and will discuss the issue at tonight’s meeting.
Vice-convenor Simon Pain told the News: “Openreach have not addressed the sorts of things that could go wrong and how they could cover for that emergency,
“One really significant issue was that the landlines are transferring from analogue to digital with all calls going via the broadband service.
“That means if there’s any problems the landline fails completely – including the 999 service.
“We have a lot of elderly people in our area who do not have mobile phones.
“And they are exactly the kind of people who need a reliable emergency service.”
The community council invited an Openreach representative to tonight’s meeting but were unable to secure a commitment.
Mr Pain said: “Overall, there does not seem to have been an adequate risk assessment carried out regarding the consequences of long-term broadband or power failures on vulnerable communities.
“Business swipe card terminals wouldn’t work and so businesses tried to revert to cash.
“No-one carries much cash these days, so businesses were severely affected.
“And people working from home were unable to continue their normal business via the internet.”
He added: “Personal care alarms were also affected.
“If you pull it somebody comes but these also are via the broadband link and no longer worked.
“There’s a chap in our community who is nearly 100 and the only way for him to contact anybody was for us to call in and see him.”
Openreach indicated that the power issue is being handled by a specialist electrical engineering team based in Croydon.
They are not able to attend the meeting tonight.
The company also recommended that people experiencing problems should contact their service providers in the first instance.
An Openreach spokesperson said: “We’re sorry to hear about the impact the recent cabinet outage had on local people.
“It was caused by a complex earthing issue in the cabling connecting the cabinet to power.
“Work has been carried out and the cabinet is being monitored.
“But engineers are planning an alternative power solution to prevent any further issue in the future.
“When things go wrong, we always strive to get people reconnected as quickly and safely as we can.
“But sometimes there are factors which make a fix more complex.
“We’re very sorry it wasn’t resolved fast enough on this occasion.”