Hundreds of homes and businesses remained without a telephone service last night following a lightning storm in the early hours of Monday.

BTC spokeswoman Ona Fletcher said since the company released its statement relating to the damage on Monday afternoon, scores of complaints had been registered from all parts of the Island.

She said there were about 770 residential and 280 businesses phone lines still affected as of late yesterday afternoon, including regular phone lines and some Centrex lines, which are used for credit card machines.

Ms Fletcher said the lightning damaged transmission equipment and the electrical power supplies that feed them, disabling calls made between BTC telephone numbers beginning with 29 and those beginning with 23. Where lines were affected, customers will have heard a fast, busy signal.

Calls made within the same exchange, from 23 to 23 or 29 to 29, were unaffected.

The spokeswoman said the faults were not related to the damage caused to Paget Exchange by the lightning, which was repaired before 5 p.m. on Monday.

The BTC statement said: "BTC crews have been redeployed from other assignments and are making these storm-related repairs a priority and all lines should be functioning by the weekend.

"BTC apologises for the inconvenience this unusual interruption has caused, and we thank our customers for their continuing patience."

Any residential or business customers who continue to experience difficulty with their service should call 611. Data line problems may be reported to 711.