Telephone service back up after multistate failure
Telephone service has been restored to all Windstream Communications customers in Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana, the company announced Wednesday.
All repairs were completed by 3:30 p.m. CDT, company spokeswoman Erin Ascione said.
Telephone service at the Shorewood School District, the Wauwatosa School District and city of Wauwatosa city hall had been affected by the failure, which began around 7 a.m.
The service problems were described as an unusual convergence of events by Windstream Communications on Wednesday that caused telephone service to go down to many businesses, government agencies, and commercial phone users in the three states.
Windstream provides voice and data services to many customers in the three states. The company had at the same time a computer card failure and two separate fiber cable cuts, said Ascione, a spokeswoman for Windstream, which has its headquarters in Little Rock, Ark.
The two fiber cable cuts occurred at road construction sites in Greencastle, Ind., and another at I-894 and W. Greenfield Ave. in metro Milwaukee, she said.
She said the fiber cable cut in West Allis was caused by construction crews doing work near the edge of the road.
It's not clear why the computer card failed, she said.
"The system was not completely taken out, and it's difficult to quantify the number of customers impacted," she said"
Windstream does not provide residential services, she said.
She called it "quite unusual" for the computer card to fail at the same time there were two fiber cuts. "It never happens," she added.
