josephl@wb3ffv.wb3ffv.ampr.org (Joseph Liu) (06/17/91)
CONSTRUCTION CREW ACCIDENTALLY CAUSES PHONE SERVICE OUTAGE IN NORTHERN VA. WASHINGTON (JUNE 14) UPI - A construction crew accidentally cut two phone cables in northern Virginia Friday, disrupting local and long-distance service for hundreds of thousands of customers during much of the day, officials said. The phone service disruption also made it impossible for several news operations that use a satellite link-up system in the area to transmit their data to domestic and Canadian clients. A construction crew working under contract for Bell Atlantic's C&P Telephone Co. cut two fiber-optic cables leading to 100,000 trunks, said phone company spokeswoman Ellen Fitzgerald. She said she could not estimate how many customers had their local phone service disrupted, but said perhaps hundreds of thousands of customers could not make long- distance calls at some point. Washington Gas & Light Co. independently estimated that nearly 200, 000 customers had their local telephone service disrupted. But all customers were able to call within their own community, and no one lost local emergency 911 service, said Fitzgerald. She said only one community - the northern Virginia community of Annandale, where the cables were cut - was not able to make any phone connections outside of the community. Fitzgerald said 90 percent of service was restored by 3 p.m., and the rest would be restored by the end of the day. The spokeswoman said it was highly unusual that two cables were cut. ''That's what made it catastrophic,'' she said. The phone company would not immediately identify the contractor whose construction crews cut the two cables. They were cut in a road-widening project. Among the major customers affected were several news organizations that use Washington International Teleport in Alexandria, Va., to send data by satellite to their clients. Jonathan Lytle, a technician at WIT, said that among the news organizations most affected because they do not have complete backup systems were United Press International, The Associated Press and Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Most UPI customers in the United States and Canada were not able to receive news copy from about 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., said UPI spokesman Milton Capps. But international news clients of the agency were not affected. About 12 percent to 15 percent of AP's domestic radio network clients were without service until 2:10 p.m., according to AP's assistant chief of audio-engineering, Greg Crowley. Both Bell and MCI long-distance users initially were affected by the phone service disruption, but most long-distance calls normally going through the area of the cut cables were later rerouted, Fitzgerald said. Some mobile phone users also were affected, she said.