Cable hangs up on callers

Severed fiber optics unhooks 712, 515 areas

By BILL SHEA, Messenger staff writer
A severed fiber-optic cable interfered with long distance phone calls across two-thirds of Iowa, including the Fort Dodge area, for several hours Friday afternoon.

The cable was cut near Winterset, according to Patricia Amendola, a spokeswoman for Frontier Communications. She said the mishap affected long distance calling throughout the 515 and 712 area codes.

Amendola said 911 emergency service remained functional during the outage.

She was unable to estimate when the service would be fully restored.

Employees of Woodman Wireless in the Crossroads Mall said they had been told that Frontier hoped to have the cable repaired by midnight Friday.

According to both Woodman Wireless and US Cellular in Fort Dodge, cell phone users could call other cell phones, but could not call land lines provided by Frontier. Cell phone users could call land lines provided by other companies, such as Mediacom Communications Corp.

The long distance outage caused some havoc for local businesses that use that service frequently.

‘‘It was a bit of a mess,’’ said Heather Rude, the field manager at AAA Travel Agency, 101 N. 27th St. ‘‘There was no way to communicate with our vendors and our clients.’’

Staffers at the front desk of the Best Western Starlite Village Inn & Suites resorted to using their personal cell phones to call customers.



Contact Bill Shea at (515) 573-2141 or bshea@messengernews.net