Aliant restores services after cables cut

Date: Jun. 9,2004
ST. JOHN'S - Aliant says it has restored long distance, internet and data services to all its customers in Newfoundland and Labrador who lost their connections when two fibre optic cables were cut Tuesday night.

Frank Fagan, Aliant's chief operating officer, says by midday Wednesday all of the 250,000 affected customers had their services back.

Both cables in the Holyrood area were cut at about 10 p.m.

Part of Aliant's replacement cable in Holyrood

Fagan says a buried cable near the intersection of the Trans-Canada Highway and the Witless Bay Line was dug up.

"They had to remove a large boulder from the top of that, dig off up to a foot of gravel, take up a couple of pieces of plywood and then sever the cable."

Fagan says within 10 or 12 minutes another fibre optic service a 10-minute drive away was cut. "It was a pole that would have had about six or seven other cables on it, and they selected the two that were directly associated with the backup fibre route."

He says that would indicate the cables were targeted by someone who knew what to look for.

Disruption deliberate, police say

The RCMP are investigating, and Const. Tony Seaward says they believe the cables were deliberately cut.

Aliant workers in four provinces have been on strike since April 23, but Fagan is avoiding blaming strikers for the cut lines.

Union representative Chuck Shewfelt says the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union has been warning members not to mount any illegal activities against Aliant during the strike.

The Avalon Peninsula in particular lost long distance, internet and data services, but other areas of the province were affected as well.

Contact with planes lost

Air traffic controllers in Gander could not contact airplanes over the northwest Atlantic. Controllers lost all data contact, and for a couple of minutes they couldn't talk to the pilots.

"As a result of this, our regional control centre in Gander had to switch to alternate radio frequencies and alternate radar feed," says NavCanada spokesperson Louis Garneau. "The use of data link for automatic wave point reporting was also interrupted during that period.

"This created an extra workload for our staff at the centre, but fortunately, there was no interruption to the traffic flow and there was no impact on safety."

Garneau says NavCanada's emergency communication plan was implemented successfully. He says only about a third of all airplanes rely on data links, and those have voice contact backup.

Related CBC links:

• June 9, 2004: Cables deliberately cut: Aliant

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