Updated at 4:41 p.m., Thursday, October 25, 2001

Phone service returned on two islands

Advertiser Staff

Thousands of customers had their telephone and wireless phone service restored this afternoon after a Verizon Hawaii telephone worker accidentally severed a fiber optic line this morning causing telephone disruptions and other problems on parts of O'ahu and throughout Maui.

Disruptions started at 9 a.m. and affected thousands of customers in Kailua, Kalihi, Kapolei and all of Maui, said Verizon Hawaii spokeswoman Ann Nishida. On O'ahu, customers could send and receive calls within their neighborhood, but couldn't receive or call outside their neighborhoods. The same problem occurred on Maui. In Kapolei, customers reported having trouble making long-distance calls.

Nishida said the O'ahu problem started when one of their workers accidentally cut a fiber optic line at the Kalihi central office. The accident disrupted cell phone communications, ATM bank service and Internet communications, Nishida said.

By 11:26 a.m., Kalihi was up and running, and by 4:30 p.m., service was fully restored to all other customers, Verizon reported.

The disruption did not affect critical police communications, said Honolulu Police Department spokeswoman Michelle Yu.

"The 911 system has not been affected," Yu said this morning at about 10:30 a.m. "No one reported any problems. We haven't received any complaints from the public. The police radio system is working. The radios are not affected."

The disruption did not hamper the response time for the Honolulu Fire Department which communicates on the radio frequencies, said Capt. Michael Kamano of the Fire Communication Center.

"We still have radio communication," Kamano said at 10:50 a.m. "It's not affecting our response times."

Ken Furukawa, spokeman for Nextel Partners, said the disruption affected wireless service on three islands. He said the company's network is connected to Verizon Hawaii.