Severed line downs Maricopa communications

Internet and cell phone service was cut for most of Maricopa this morning after a 200-line fiber optic cable was cut by a backhoe somewhere between Casa Grande and Coolidge.

Ben Graff, IT/communications director with the Maricopa Fire District, said he first noticed the problem when reporting to work this morning. Graff said the department can still receive 100 percent of its dispatches despite the downed lines.

“Mission critical is still 100 percent,” Graff said. “Our system is designed to work around a problem like this.” Graff added that fire personnel can dial internally in a situation like this, and that a point-to-point line with a dispatcher is available where personnel can use a radio channel to communicate.

Randy Wheeler, vice president/manager of Sunstate Bank, 19750 N. John Wayne Parkway, noted around 9 a.m. that the bank was open for business and serving customers.

“Our system that pulls up accounts is down, as are our cell phones, but something like this doesn’t close us down,” Wheeler said. “Something like this is more of an inconvenience.”

Wheeler added that downed communications impact people coming into the bank on an individual basis. Regular customers are less affected because tellers are more apt to recognize them.

“If a customer comes in who is not a regular, we will ask for a little bit more information from them,” Wheeler said. Bank personnel can still make deposits, withdrawals and many other everyday banking procedures when the computer system is down.

Orbitel, Qwest, AT&T and Verizon were among the companies that lost service because of the damaged line. DSL and high-speed Internet lines through Qwest were still down as of late morning, according to the company’s tech support.