Fiber Optic Cut in Maryland Impacts Pittsburgh Internet

There were reports of Internet and e-mail service outages in the Pittsburgh area this morning. Lee Gierczynski, spokesman for Verizon, says a fiber optic ring was cut in Hagerstown in Maryland affecting some business customers. The cut occurred around 4 a.m. around a railroad right of way. Gierczynski says technicians were on site splicing in about one thousand foot of new cable and completed that task late this morning. Service to business customers was restored between 11 and 11:30 this morning. The Verizon spokesman says there was some diversity in the network and customers could have been affected to varying degrees including e-mail, Internet and voice services. He says they had reports from more than 200 business customers about outages. Gierczynski says this impacted customers in Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey. Only business customers lost service, no residential customers.
Allegheny County spokesman Kevin Evanto told WDUQ that some county offices lost Internet and Duquesne University also reported losing service for a few hours.