Several hundred thousand Spectrum customers in Maine and New Hampshire lost internet and other services for about two hours Monday night because of fiber breaks, the company said.
Internet, cable and telephone service went down around 6 p.m., the company said, and service was restored at around 8 p.m. Spectrum has more than 440,000 residential and business customers in Maine, and all were affected, a company spokesperson said.
Problems began at 6 p.m. when customers began losing their internet connections.
“We are aware of an issue affecting services at this time for Spectrum customers in Maine,” Spectrum tweeted just before 6 p.m. “We’re working diligently to restore your service as quickly as possible & apologize for any inconvenience. Thank you for your patience.”
A company spokesperson said fiber breaks caused the outage.
We are aware of an issue affecting services at this time for Spectrum customers in Maine. We're working diligently to restore your service as quickly as possible & apologize for any inconvenience. Thank you for your patience.
— Ask Spectrum (@Ask_Spectrum) April 5, 2021
“We’ve identified two separate fiber breaks in our network, impacting services for Spectrum customers in Maine and New Hampshire,” Heidi Vandenbrouck said in an email Monday night. “These separate breaks have impacted our redundant path, which normally serves as backup, when a break or damage is incurred in a part of the network.”
Among others impacts, the outage forced the postponement of a virtual meeting of the Portland City Council until April 12.
Vandenbrouck later said that service to Maine and New Hampshire was rerouted to reconnect customers as soon as possible, but workers were still making repairs to the breaks that caused the outage.
Meanwhile, Spectrum customers took to the company’s Ask Spectrum platform, a virtual account that can answer questions about services, products and individual accounts, to air their complaints and concerns.
“National championship game at 9:20pm, you’re on the clock,” one subscriber wrote, referring to the NCAA championship basketball game between Gonzaga and Baylor.
“My life has lost all meaning. What’s the point of going on?” another quipped.
“So many students not going to get homework done tonight. They can thank Spectrum!” added an observant subscriber.
Spectrum offers cable television, Internet and phone service to customers in Maine and nationwide.
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