Telephone And Internet Services
Recently, the fiber network of CenturyLink was cut in Rexburg, and it was restored after forty-eight hours. The internet and telephone services of the users were restored after restoring the network. Reports say that around 4,200 internet lines were disrupted, out of which, 126 users in Ririe were not even having the “dial tone service.”
“We’re horrified by this too,” said CenturyLink’s Market Development Manager Megan Griffin. “We had a team out there all night long with backhoes working diligently. Imagine being out in the middle of the night digging and digging through 18 inches of frozen ground. It was like digging through cement.”
“They spliced new fiber in where it was cut. When it all came back up, it all came back up (at the same time). It took it time to process,” she said. Griffin confirmed that the fiber was cut at about 03:11 p.m. and the reason is not known yet. Shortly after that, some of the CenturyLink users who managed to get some internet connection, through some other provider, got on social media asking if any of the other CenturyLink users were experiencing disruption in their services.
For around three hours, many restaurants and businesses were unable to accept any credit or debit cards as their internet services were down. However, Griffin was unable to confirm if this happened due to the cable cut. Yet she added that shortly after they learned that there was an interruption in the internet services, CenturyLink employees searched the snowy and cold weather to find and fix the problem.
CenturyLink Phone
“We had people around the clock on site in those horrible, horrible temperatures. The ground was frozen to 18 inches deep. It’s a pretty difficult dig to locate the problem and obviously rectify the problem,” Griffin said. Although CenturyLink received many phone calls after the outage, Griffin said that everyone who called was good and understanding. “There are always people who are frustrated. We do our best to inform them as to what’s going on to work to get back up,” she said.
Griffin was very much pleased with the work of the CenturyLink technicians to restart the internet and telephone services very quickly. “Our line was cut, and we fixed it. It was far quicker than anyone could have imagined. Those techs worked very hard. It’s very difficult to access (a cable) on a hillside on frozen ground,” she said. “I’m very proud of the work our team did.”
