Severed cables lead to phone, Internet outages

Two separate cuts in fiber-optic cable threw parts of the region back into the dark ages of local land-line communications on Monday. Telecom help desks and local service carriers were inundated with calls from people who had no cellular phone, long-distance, toll-free and Internet service for much of the day.

According to Carolyn Hall with CenturyTel Inc. communications services' Missouri South office, at 6:45 a.m. Monday a fiber-optic line was severed in Arkansas. Service from that line was then redirected through another line. Three hours later, that line was severed by public utility workers about 250 miles away near Imperial, Mo.

The cables in question are owned and serviced by Light Core, a subsidiary of CenturyTel Inc. However, the cables are used by a number of major carriers, including Verizon and Cingular Wireless Companies, whose towers were connected to the lines.

Meredith White with Big River Telephone Co. said she wasn't sure how many customers were affected but that the outage affected "all major carriers." She said that to her knowledge customers were experiencing trouble with toll-free service, cell-phone service and cable Internet until most service was restored just after 3 p.m.

The outage provided for an exciting morning and afternoon for local service providers. Representatives with JCS/Tel-Link in Cape Girardeau said that they received tons of phone calls from concerned patrons. The company's service representatives, like many all over the area, handled the influx of customer calls without Internet access and without access to certain 800 numbers.

It was just as much of a nuisance for customers.

Linda Lowes, director of government services for the city of Sikeston, Mo., said the city's 911 system was still working, but that the city's emergency backup of Verizon Wireless phones was down for much of the day. She said her Verizon representatives told her that the severed cables had caused patchy service outages across the country.

Lowes also said the city had limited long-distance service, only being able to get calls out to certain areas.

"It was just a little inconvenient," Lowes said with a snarl of sarcasm.

trehagen@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137