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Home > BizTimes Daily > Archives > May 21, 2008
Ruptured line slows down Internet service throughout region
Published May 21, 2008 - BizTimes Daily
Thousands of Wisconsin businesses and residences were left without high-speed Internet service today after a road construction crew ruptured a major fiber optic line connecting the Milwaukee region to Chicago.
The line was accidentally cut by a crew working along Interstate 94 in northern Illinois this morning.
The cut line disrupted service for TDS Metrocom and TDS Telecom commercial and residential customers throughout the Midwest, according to DeAnne Boegli, manager of public relations for the companies.
TDS and several other Internet service providers (ISPs) rent bandwidth on the line that was ruptured, Boegli said.
Sources said service to subscribers of MSN's Hotmail in the Milwaukee area also was disrupted today.
"We have crews on site. We have to replace a span of 2,500 feet fiber optic line along Interstate 94," Boegli said. "We lease the bandwidth that goes through there from other vendors. That whole fiber optic tube was crushed by the digger. Because it's glass, it sort of shatters when it gets cut, not like copper (wire)."
TDS and other ISPs were forced to reroute their customers' Internet traffic around Chicago on lines with smaller bandwidth, causing considerable delays in service.
The slower connection speeds led many TDS customers to believe their problems were being caused by their individual computers, rather than their Internet service.
The disruption made conducting business difficult today for London-Tarsus Group PLC, which operates its U.S. headquarters in Brookfield.
"You always wonder if it is something internal - it has certainly had an impact on us," said Don Browne, marketing director for Tarsus Group. "Basically as a media company, we produce trade shows and conferences, we are heavily dependent on the web for our sales outreach, for our marketing communications. Plus, we are an international company, so we have a home office in the UK. I would say it probably put everybody back at least two or three hours of work and maybe more, depending on the kind of projects they are working on. It has made for a pretty difficult day."
Several customers of Stamm Business Technologies, a Milwaukee information technology (IT) company were affected by the disruptions, according to Ariel Donahue, help desk engineer at the firm, which also has an office in Chicago.
"Because we are an IT company, we have back ups. It did throw off our main line this morning for a while. It has affected a number of our DSL TDS subscriber clients," Donahue said. "Because all of the traffic is being rerouted, systems are a lot slower."
The disruption also caused the Small Business Times to send out its BizTimes Daily bulletin one hour later than normal today.
Boegli of TDS said, "We are trying to reroute as much as possible. We are fully expecting it to be completed by tonight. They'll work on it until they're done, and we'll bring people up as fast as we can," Boegli said. "We'll be trying to bring up as many of our customers as soon as we can. We're working hard to get it done."
