Ting customers in Southwest Colorado lost internet service Tuesday because of a cut in a fiber-optic line near the Sonic drive-thru in Durango.
The city and the Durango-La Plata County Airport experienced internet outages beginning at 10 a.m., and power remained out as of 3:30 p.m.
Ting Internet listed major internet outages in Durango, Bayfield, Dolores, Cortez and Farmington. According to Spectrum’s customer support, the internet provider was not experiencing an internet outage.
City of Durango spokesman Tom Sluis said the city was told the outage was a result of a cut in a fiber-optic line but could not confirm that Ting was the provider.
“At 8am MST we noticed a fiber cut to one of our main lines that we lease from a third-party provider,” said Ting spokeswoman Deb Walker. “After notifying our provider, they dispatched a team to identify and fix the damage.”
The cause of the outage was a cut in the line from construction being done on East Eighth Avenue. Ting spokeswoman Victoria Cacioppo said the construction team was not paying attention to the marked utility line when digging in the area.
Walker said Ting expects the issue to be resolved before Wednesday morning.
“The main impact right now is that our phones are not working,” Sluis said.
He added that the lack of service impacted only administrative services and that operations such as trash pickup and road maintenance were not affected. Sluis said the city had internet service as of noon Tuesday but did not have phone service.
Sluis said the city’s nonemergency and emergency phone lines were not impacted by the outage.
The internet outage impacted some minor operations at the Durango-La Plata County Airport.
“As of now our tenants don't seem to be substantially impacted,” said Aviation Director Tony Vicari. “They're moving along; airline operations are continuing to flow through some level of backup procedures they have.”
He said the biggest impact was to airport parking. The gates are automated using the internet and when there’s an outage, airport staff must operate the gates manually.
He added that if the airport has to issue any safety or weather notices to the pilots, it can be done over the phone through backup call services.
tbrown@durangoherald.com
