COMCAST OUTAGE DISRUPTS BUSINESS IN OC, DELAWARE

Internet searches were fruitless Tuesday afternoon for many Comcast Internet customers after service was lost because of an accident. (July 3, 2009) Of all the weeks for it to happen, one of the worst had to be the one leading into the Fourth of July weekend as many resort area businesses and residents lost access to the Internet, affecting reservation systems, email exchanges and charge card machines.

That little bit of panic that set in Tuesday afternoon centered on whether the Comcast Internet service outage in the lower Maryland-Delaware area would be a short-lived thing or something much more disagreeable.

As it happened, the loss of service in Worcester and Wicomico counties in Maryland and Kent and Sussex in Delaware, only lasted several hours and involved none of those bedeviling software or systems glitches. Comcast's loss of service to this area was caused by something more mundane: a truck accident north of Dover.

A concrete mixing truck accidentally hit a utility pole at about 11:40 a.m. in Townsend in New Castle County. The accident cut Comcast's fiber line, disrupting service, said Jaye Linnen, a Comcast representative, Wednesday.

"Comcast technicians were immediately alerted to the issue through our internal monitoring systems and were promptly on scene to begin assessing the situation and safely repairing the damage caused by the truck," Linnen said in an email.

Linnen did not say how many customers were affected, but the accident knocked out telephone service, video and Internet for most customers in the lower two Delaware counties, plus the Ocean City and Salisbury areas.

Other than possible isolated instances, all services were restored by 4 p.m., she said.

At the Ocean City Today office, however, service was restored by 4, but went down again at 4:32 for a brief period. Service was also disrupted Wednesday morning.

"We apologize for the inconvenience this caused our customers," Linnen said.

An online Comcast representative said the problem was "actually an unplanned outage and we apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused. Please be assured we will use this event as an opportunity to learn, and the information we gather will be applied towards making our network even more reliable."

Before she could respond to the next question, the service at Ocean City Today went down again.

At the newspaper office, neither the news nor sales staffs could use the Internet to retrieve emails relevant to this week's issue. Meanwhile, stores, restaurants and other businesses that use card-swiping machines when customers pay with credit cards had to ask for cash, accept checks or do the work manually.

Employees at Fat Daddy's, with two locations at 82nd Street and downtown on Baltimore Avenue near Dorchester Street, did the work manually. They had to call a number, give the credit card number to the person on the line and that person would give them a code, owner Ed Baude said. When Internet service resumed, they had to do it all over again by putting the information into the machine.

Baude said Fat Daddy's does not have Comcast phone service, so the phones kept working. Baude, however, had the day off and was at home, where his Comcast phone service was not working. So he had to use his cell phone to communicate with employees at work.

It was bad, but it could have been worse. Half of Fat Daddy's business is from people who call in and pick up their food and delivery orders, Baude said. If he lost that business, he would be tempted to sue, he said.

This is not the first time Comcast Internet service has gone down, he said, but there were routine steps that had to be taken to be sure it was a Comcast issue. First, employees rebooted the credit card swiping machine, then called the credit card company and then, when it is determined that it is not a credit card issue, call Comcast and then wait for Comcast to fix the problem.

Linnen said she did not know about any credits on their Comcast bills that customers could receive because of the outage and missed business.

Some hotels also lost Internet service, which not only affected the use of credit cards but also left them without an increasingly popular means of communicating with potential guests.

It was, however, a temporary thing, followed by a collective sigh of relief.