Spectrum representative says townwide outage was caused by fiber cut; company installed redundant line

Mike Morris, a government affairs representative for Charter/Spectrum in Wyoming, told the Casper City Council on June 24 that a multi-day outage that affected internet and some cell service in Casper was caused by a cut to the company’s main fiber feeding the town.

“The outage was town wide, and it was a result of a new fiber cut to our main hub,” Morris said. He told council members Spectrum had been in the process of installing a redundant fiber line when the cut occurred and that the redundant route “went active last month in May,” allowing traffic to fail over automatically if a future cut occurs.

Council members asked why the line that was cut did not appear on utility locates and whether the event explained concurrent cell service interruptions. Morris said the cut was to a carrier fiber and not part of Spectrum’s redundancy work; he described the cut as a separate provider’s fiber. He also said some wireless carriers purchase fiber transport from Spectrum, which can tie an internet fiber outage to impacts on cell service when carriers use that fiber to reach towers.

Council members requested follow-up on why the affected fiber was not recorded on locates and whether the town’s existing mapping of underground lines needs updating. Carter (staff) said the city would track the follow-up items requested by council.

Morris handed council a footprint map of Spectrum’s network and said Spectrum plans an announcement this week about additional community programs. The council thanked Morris for appearing and for the company’s local community contributions.

The council did not take any formal action during the discussion; members requested staff follow up on the locate/recording question and to circulate any technical clarifications from Spectrum.

Votes at a glance: none; this was a staff briefing and Q&A.