Phone service in Illinois rerouted and working

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By Thomas Geyer | Thursday, February 22, 2007 12:32 AM CST | () comments

AT&T customers in the 309, 815 and 217 area codes in Illinois should be able to make calls more easily now, as crews have rerouted the system around a cut in a fiber cable that caused many calls to not go through this afternoon and evening, a company spokeswoman said tonight.

“Service was back up as of 8 p.m.,” said Cara Birch.

She said a cut in a fiber cable near Shorewood, Ill., caused the problems. Locally, calls to and from the Illinois Quad-Cities would not go through.

The Rock Island and Moline service areas, as well as the Springfield and Peoria service areas were impacted by the problem, Birch said, adding that long distance and toll-free numbers were virtually shut off.

There may still be sporadic outages due to the fact that the fiber cable still needs to be repaired, she said, but most customers should have little to no trouble with getting their calls through.

EARLIER STORY

AT&T is experiencing some network issues that are affecting calls to and from the Illinois Quad-Cities, a company spokeswoman said this afternoon, meaning that in many cases, service is shut down or calls are unable to get through.

The problems have yet to be identified, said Cara Birch shortly after 5 p.m.

She said that the Rock Island and Moline service areas are being impacted by the problems, as well as the Springfield and Peoria service areas.

“The network issues are impacting a good portion of central Illinois,” she said, adding that crews are working to locate the source of the problems.

“You can make local calls in some areas,” she said. “Some customers are experiencing sporadic call trouble. It depends on where you are from the central office, how many miles.”

Long distance and toll-free numbers are being completely impacted, or not being able to be completed, she added.

There is no estimate yet on when the system will be fixed because crews are still trying to identify the problems, she said.