Sprint Network Outage Cuts Service to Millions
Posted on: Tuesday, 10 January 2006, 12:00 CST
By Tricia Duryee, The Seattle Times
Jan. 10--Millions of wireless and wireline Sprint phone customers were without service for four hours Monday afternoon after the company's network went down in several states, according to a Sprint spokeswoman.
Service was restored at around 4 p.m. after customers of the Reston, Va.-based company were not able to make or receive phone calls in some instances from either their landline phone or cellphone, said Sprint spokeswoman Mary Beth Lowell.
Sprint, which purchased Nextel Communications in August, has 45.6 million wireless users. Subscribers in Western states, including Washington, reportedly were unable to make or receive cellphone calls during the outage.
Nextel customers were not affected. But wireless customers of other companies, including Qwest and Virgin Mobile, were affected because they use Sprint's infrastructure to deliver service.
In Washington state, customers of Sprint's local wireline telephone service were able to make local, local long-distance and 911 calls, said Marilyn Meehan of the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC). But she said they were not able to call out of state or between Western Washington and Eastern Washington.
In Washington, Sprint serves about 80,000 residential and business customers in the Quilcene, Brinnon and Poulsbo areas of Western Washington and the areas surrounding Toppenish and Wapato in Eastern Washington.
The cause of the outage was traced to a fiber-line cut about 12:30 p.m. between Phoenix and Palm Springs, Calif. It also slowed Internet traffic.
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Source: The Seattle Times
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