Archive for December 15, 2010
Local Phone Service Interrupted
by John Weckerle
KOBTV reports that internet and phone service have been restored to our area after having been interrupted due to the accidental cutting of a Qwest fiber optic cable in Tijeras. Another crew cut a line south of Soccorro that interrupted service to much of the southern part of the State. KOBTV and other sources suggested that cell phones be used to make emergency contact.
That would have been fine, we suppose, except for those of us whose cell phone service was also affected. As it turns out, we had a medical emergency here at New Mexico Central headquarters shortly after the outage began, and found that our Sprint cell service was also inoperative. Unable to make ANY connections to contact doctors or emergency response people for advice, we made our own run to the ER in Albuquerque and took care of the problem ourselves (everything will be fine).
We would like to know more about this situation: the identity of the contractors, what led to the accidental cutting of the cables, whether any negligence was involved, what corrective actions and/or sanctions are being implemented, and what Qwest may be able to do provide some level of backup service in the event that cables are accidentally cut in the future.