Severed fiber cable causes internet, phone and TV outages in northern Arizona

Prescott News Network

Quad-city residents who use Sparklight internet, phone or cable TV services experienced a widespread outage that started Sunday morning due to a cut fiber cable.

During the outage, a recorded message on the company’s support telephone line explained that the disruption in service was caused by a “fiber cut.”

At 12:51 p.m., Sparklight posted a message on their twitter page explaining that technicians were working to restore services as quickly as possible.

“We apologize for any inconvenience and will provide updates here as they become available,” the company stated, referring to the social media page, twitter.com/sparklightcares.

In a 7 p.m. post, the company explained “Sparklight partners with a vendor on the primary backbone circuit that runs through Arizona. The fiber cut occurred on the vendor’s fiber, located between Yarnell and Prescott.”

The company also said that due to the terrain in that area, the vendor needed to isolate the precise location of the fiber in order to begin the splicing work required to restore services.

“We appreciate you bearing with us as we continue to work with our vendor to get this resolved as quickly and safely as possible,” another post stated.

Around 7:30 p.m. some area residents reported internet service was returning.

By 8:22 p.m. Sparklight posted an update on their Twitter page indicating that temporary repairs were made to restore services to its customers.

“Our vendor was able to reroute traffic to restore services until permanent repairs are completed. We again thank you for your ongoing patience,” the post said. “If you continue to experience service issues, please contact our 24/7 Technical Care Team at 877-692-2253.”

A similar widespread outage occurred on Nov. 14, 2020, when a backhoe unaffiliated with Sparklight and its service provider was reportedly doing construction work in Phoenix and inadvertently cut a conduit as well as a 288-strand and 72-strand fiber cable at 107th Avenue and Indian School Road. That outage lasted most of the day for more that 69,000 Sparklight customers in Prescott, Prescott Valley, Chino Valley, Paulden, Dewey-Humboldt, Mayer, Cottonwood, Show Low, Pinetop, Navajo County, Snowflake, Taylor, Winslow, Holbrook and Joseph City.

In a May 25 email to its customers, Sparklight apologized for the outage.

“We appreciate your patience while our vendor worked diligently to reroute traffic to restore services until permanent repairs can be completed and apologize for any inconvenience this outage may have caused,” Sparklight wrote.

“We will automatically be issuing a credit to our residential customers on an upcoming bill to make up for any inconvenience you experienced during this time - there is no need to call in to receive this credit.”


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