News Summary

SPRINGFIELD — An outside contractor on Saturday, April 5, cut through an AT&T fiber optic line, causing a communications outage for more than 11 hours.

The outage began at 1:48 p.m. when the contractor cut through the fiber near Race and High streets, said Bob Beasley, Ohio spokesman for AT&T.

Phones and computers could have been affected until the problem was fixed at 1:07 a.m. Sunday, he said.

Beasley was unsure how many customers were affected, but Saturday apparently was the day telecommunications in Springfield went on the fritz.

The Target store on First Street had to accept only cash or checks for most of the day Saturday because it was unable to process credit cards.

"We held items for people and made whatever accommodations we could," said manager Debbie Ebbers. "We only had a few people who said forget it."

The local Target, she said, uses Time Warner for its communications — but a cable company spokeswoman reported no significant outages in the area Saturday.

AT&T and Time Warner don't share fiber optics, Beasley said.

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