PHONE lines are now back on after a fire in Derby that affected tens of thousands of people.
People and businesses across Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Warwickshire were left with no phone connections after the blaze at the BT exchange in Colyear Street, at about 3.30am this morning.
Firefighters were called to the scene and said two small fires had damaged telecommunications equipment.
Engineers then spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon attempting to fix the damaged equipment and repair the connections.
The Royal Derby Hospital, Rolls-Royce, Bombardier and the Derby City Council all experienced problems with their phone lines, until BT confirmed the problem had been fixed at about 2pm.
A spokesman for BT said: "Some households and businesses in the Derby area saw a loss of telephone services this morning following a fire at one of our exchanges.
"We apologise for any inconvenience caused. Engineers have worked hard to repair equipment damaged by the fire and the vast majority of affected customers now have a working service again.
"We are working to fix the remaining faults as quickly as possible."
The cause of the fire is not yet known , although BT has confirmed that no one was in the building at the time of the blaze.
The company was not treating the incident as suspicious.
