Ferry, English Channel
Multiple internet cables were cut after a ship dragged its anchor along the seabed in the English Channel Reuters

Internet users on the Channel Islands are facing slower broadband speeds after three fibre optic cables were cut.

The disruption is believed to have been caused by a ship dragging its anchor on the English seabed. JT, the main telecom company on Jersey, said engineers have been deployed to repair the cables, which went down between 4.00pm and 9.00pm GMT on Monday (28 November).

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The three international submarine cables connect Jersey with England and all communications traffic to and from the Channel Islands is currently being routed via the submarine cable link with France. JT warned that with all traffic using the single link to France, "customers may notice some impact on services."

The company said in a statement: "JT engineers have been working on the situation throughout the night, and have already mobilised the specialist team that repairs major undersea cables. It is not possible to get a precise time yet on when those cables will be repaired, but the work will be completed as soon as possible."

Daragh McDermott, Director of Corporate Affairs for JT, said: "We would like to sincerely apologise to our customers for any disruption to their services. We are working as quickly as we can to get our undersea cables repaired, and normal service resumed, and will keep customers up-to-date with what is an extremely challenging emergency engineering operation at sea.

"It is exceptionally unlucky and unprecedented for three submarine cables to the UK to be cut in the same day, and it proves the value of having multiple links in the network, in order to provide a backup connection via France," McDermott added.

While the current scenario of multiple cables being severed is highly unusual, it is certainly not the first time that a ship has caused such issues. In January, a cable was cut after a vessel dropped its anchor in bad weather. While JT said customers would not have noticed disruption in that instance, it took seven days to fix the cable, according to the BBC.