Ariz. Internet outage exposes vulnerability

Vandals cut wires, take down 911 systems, disrupt businesses.

FLAGSTAFF, ARIZ. — Computers, cellphones and landlines in Arizona were knocked out of service for hours, ATMs stopped working, 911 systems were disrupted and businesses were unable to process credit card transactions — all because vandals sliced through a fiber-optic Internet cable buried under the rocky desert.

The Internet outage did more than underscore just how dependent modern society has become on high technology. It raised questions about the vulnerability of the nation’s Internet infrastructure.

Alex Juarez, a spokesman for Internet service provider CenturyLink, said the problem was first reported around noon Wednesday, and customer complaints immediately began to pour in from the northern edges of Phoenix to cities like Flagstaff, Prescott and Sedona. Service began coming back within a few hours and was reported fully restored by about 3 a.m. Thursday.

CenturyLink blamed vandalism, and police are investigating.

The CenturyLink-owned cable — actually, a set of cables bundled together in a black jacket a few inches in diameter — was buried several feet under the rocky soil in a dry wash, about a quarter-mile from the nearest houses and a couple of miles from an outlet mall. Vehicles can navigate the area easily, but foot traffic there is rare, Phoenix police spokesman Officer James Holmes said.

“It’s almost as if someone had to know it was there,” Holmes said.

Police believe the vandals were looking for copper wire — which can fetch high price as scrap — but didn’t find any after cutting all the way through the cable, probably with power tools, Holmes said.

“Your average house saw and wire cutters wouldn’t do it,” Holmes said. He said the damage was estimated at $6,000.

As the outage spread, CenturyLink technicians began the long, tedious process of inspecting the line mile by mile. They eventually located the severed cable and spliced it back together.

CenturyLink gave no estimate on how many people were affected, but the outage was widespread because other cellphone, TV and Internet providers used the cable, too, under leasing arrangements with the company.

Such networks often have built-in redundancies that allow data transmission to be rerouted to another line if a cable is cut or damaged. But that was not the case here, said Mark Goldstein, secretary for the Arizona Telecommunications and Information Council.