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Telecommunications restored from Carbondale to Aspen

Staff Report
CenturyLink crews on the evening of May 26 assess damage to a fiberoptic cable near Ironbridge subdivsion. The incident caused widespread cell, landline and Internet outages in upper Roaring Fork Valley.
Will Grandbois / Post Independent |

Phone and Internet service was restored this morning in the Roaring Fork Valley as crews worked to repair a fiber-optic cable severed late Tuesday afternoon by a contractor.

Century Link spokeswoman Sara Spaulding said the line was repaired by 9:45 a.m., though Aspen police tweeted at 10 a.m. “Some services still limited. Pitkin County residents can find info @ http://pitkinemergency.org.”

The mishap disabled cell service, land lines as well as some Internet service from Carbondale to Aspen starting at 5 p.m. Tuesday after the contractor cut the line late near the Ironbridge subdivision between Glenwood Springs and Carbondale.



Glenwood Springs was not affected; phone service clicked on for people traveling downvalley when they were about 5 miles from Glenwood.

A repair crew that worked through the night found more damage at about 7 a.m. Wednesday, Spaulding said.



“A third party contract out there digging … cut the cable,” Spaulding said.

“We’ll be conducting an investigation,” she added Wednesday morning.

Most phone service remained out in the region Wednesday morning, and Internet depended on the provider. Service through Century Link was generally be down; Comcast’s Xfinity service remained up.

Garfield County dispatch said Tuesday evening that emergency 911 service was down in Carbondale, although some calls were getting through. That service was restored by mid-morning today.

Spaulding said the outage was in Aspen, Carbondale, Basalt, El Jebel and Snowmass.

In Carbondale, whether businesses were open Wednesday morning depended on whether their point-of-sale systems were up.

The popular Village Smithy restaurant had posted a sign saying “cash preferred,” but because of experience with outages, had kept its credit card imprint machine.

“We’re kind of an old-fashioned establishment,” said Laura Mahr, a Smithy manager. “We have the common sense to get through it without technology.”

Bonfire Coffee had Comcast service.

“The first question has been, ‘Do you have Internet?’ and we can happily say yes.” said Bonfire manager Tamara Haynes-Norton.

Some industry was wholly unaffected; a cattle drive went through Carbondale from east to west shortly before 7 a.m.

Go here for updates.


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