By Mike McCombs
The Island News
A “widescale internet and phone outage” experienced Monday, Sept. 23, by customers of Sparklight, formerly Hargray Communications, has been resolved
An update on Hargray’s Faecbook page at 9:30 a.m., Tuesday, Sept. 24, read, “All customer services have been restored. Customers experiencing technical issues are asked to first reboot prior to contacting Tech Support. Impacted residential customers will receive a credit on an upcoming statement – there is no need to call in to receive this credit.
“We want to again thank you for your patience and understanding yesterday. In a rare circumstance, fiber damage was sustained in four locations, which disrupted service on both our primary and redundant lines. While technicians continue repairing fiber on one of the lines this morning, the redundancy has allowed us to restore service. We appreciate you bearing with us.”
The City of Beaufort and Beaufort County, along with countless businesses and private customers were without internet services and landline phones beginning sometime around 10:20 a.m., Monday, according to Hargray’s website.
According to Hargray, the outage was brought on by fiber damage caused by third-party digging in Hardeeville. In addition to the Lowcountry of South Carolina, there were Sparklight/Hargray outages across Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and other areas of South Carolina, according to DownDetector.com.
Verizon and T-Mobile cellular customers in the same areas dealt with service issues as well, according to internet reports.
The outage, however, did not affect 9-1-1 services, according to Master Sgt. Danny Allen, spokesperson for the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.
Around 2 p.m., a Sparklight/Hargray official responded to email inquiries from The Island News with a message similar to what had been posted on its Facebook pages earlier in the day.
“A portion of our Hargray customers are currently experiencing slow internet or internet outages due to fiber damage caused by a third-party,” the post read. “Technicians are working diligently to get services restored as quickly and safely as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate the patience of our customers while we perform the work to repair damaged fiber. We are providing updates on our Hargray Facebook page as information becomes available.”
A customer service representative contacted by phone could not give any estimate when the outage might be resolved. Her suggestion was to “call back in 24 hours.”
A portion of customers began to see their services restored Monday night.
In an 8:15 p.m., update, Hargray posted the following on its Facebook page: “Our teams continue working diligently to restore services. As technicians continue working to splice and repair fiber, customers are beginning to see services come back online. We will provide another update once all services are restored. We again thank you for your ongoing patience.”
Mike McCombs is the editor of The Island News and can be reached at TheIslandNews@gmail.com.
