Phone service disrupted at state agencies

Advertiser Staff

A computer software problem knocked out telephone service to most state agencies for more than two hours yesterday morning.

Ann Nishida, spokeswoman for Verizon Hawai'i, said the phone company was notified of the problem at about 8 a.m. She said she did not know how many agencies were affected, but said most were in the downtown Honolulu area.

Nishida said state workers were able to make calls and call internally, but could not receive outside calls. She said the problem was traced to software in Verizon's central office and phone service was restored about 10:30 a.m.

Nishida said the company was continuing to look into the cause of the problem but said it was not weather-related.