An accidental fiber cut on Level 3 Communications' fiber network disrupted service for Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) and Cox customers in the Northeast.
The outages impacted each of the cable MSO's customers in the New York City area, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, starting at 2:45 p.m. ET on Monday. Time Warner Cable said a large portion of its customers were back online by around 9:00 p.m. last night.
TWC said in a statement that "multiple fiber cuts at one of our network providers" were the source of the problem.
Specifically, Time Warner Cable said that Level 3 had two fiber cable cuts: one in Cambridge, Massachusetts and one on a network segment between Philadelphia and New Wilmington, Pennsylvania.
Stephanie Walkenshaw, a spokeswoman for Level 3, confirmed in an e-mail to FierceTelecom that the provider has completed repairs and its customers are now back online.
"On Monday, May 9, our network experienced a service disruption affecting some of our customers with operations in the Northeastern United States due to a fiber cut caused by third-party construction," said Level 3 in a statement. "We know how important these services are to our customers. We dispatched our technicians and have restored service."
Cox and Time Warner Cable would not tell CNN how many customers had lost service as a result of the fiber cut.
Level 3 has seen its share of fiber cuts caused by third parties and vandals disrupt services for its wholesale customers in recent years.
While this latest fiber cut issue was due to a mistake by a contractor, Level 3 and fellow fiber provider Zayo suffered a series of attacks on its San Francisco Bay area networks last July from vandals. Following the July 2015 fiber cut, the FBI launched an investigation. Between 2014 and 2014, the Bay area there was reports of 11 physical attacks on the area's networks.
For more:
- CNN has this article
- FierceCable has this article
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