About 90,000 homes across the Big Island, Maui, Kaua'i and in parts of Hawai'i Kai lost their cable television feeds for the Allstate Sugar Bowl for up to an hour or more last night, angering thousands of University of Hawai'i fans.

Maybe they were lucky.

When the signal from Oceanic Cable went out at 5:15 p.m., UH only trailed Georgia 7-3. But when full service was restored at 6:29 p.m., UH fans in those 90,000 homes didn't have to endure the frustration of watching Georgia stretch its lead to 24 points.

"I think everybody should not have to pay our bills for the time the signal was out," said frustrated UH fan Harriet Sequeira of Wailuku, Maui.

For about 40 minutes, Sequeira's family successfully switched channels to other stations but mysteriously could not get the signal from local Fox affiliate KHON. Sequeira hoped another station might be airing the Sugar Bowl, but only Fox had the national broadcast rights, said Joe McNamara, president of KHON.

Oceanic technicians traced the lost feed to a cut fiber-optic line in Kalihi Valley, which leads to parts of Hawai'i Kai and to undersea fiber lines that feed the Neighbor Islands, said Norman Santos, Oceanic's vice president of operations.

Santos spoke via cell phone last night from his seat in the Louisiana Superdome, where he saw the game in person.

REASONS UNKNOWN

As Georgia ran up the score to 41-10 and Georgia fans roared in the background, Santos groaned, "Maybe it would have been better if my cable went out, too."

"We don't know what happened," Santos added. "Usually when something like this occurs, it's hunters who shoot the fiber. But I don't know that for a fact."

Oceanic repair crews bypassed the broken line and used a backup fiber system to temporarily restore service.

Kaua'i customers had their KHON service restored in 20 minutes, and the Big Island and Maui were back up in 30 minutes, Santos said.

But some customers said their signals remained blurry and snowy, and the sound quality was disjointed and poor.

Santos said full service was restored within an hour and 14 minutes after the break. Permanent repairs would have to begin today, he said.

McNamara, of KHON, estimated that the Sugar Bowl would attract even more viewers than the 40,000 homes that saw last year's Super Bowl.

"I think this is way bigger than the Super Bowl," he said.

A similar Oceanic problem in May 2006 caused KHON to lose its signal during "American Idol," the most watched show in Hawai'i, McNamara said.

"That was big," McNamara said, "but not as big as this."

'SHOCK AND THEN PANIC'

Laurie Chun of Hawai'i Kai didn't have the luxury of seeing the game in person or on television — at least temporarily.

She described her reaction to last night's lost signal as "shock and then panic. My mom is so upset. She's sitting there, listening to radio and staring at the snow on the television. The rest of us went to have something to eat, and then started calling the neighbors to see who had cable.

"Thankfully, we're not hosting a big party here, or Mom would be really upset."

Chun later had just finished packing up the car to watch the game at her uncle's house several blocks away when the KHON feed came back.

"We were just walking out of the house with the last box when someone yelled 'It's back on' but the picture is fuzzy," Chun said.

To prepare for the worst, Hawaiian Electric Co. officials placed extra repair crews on duty specifically for last night's game to handle any power outages. But none was reported, HECO spokesman Darren Pai said.

Because of the statewide interest in the game, Oceanic also had extra crews on duty last night to respond to any disruptions in television service, Santos said.

"We were treating this like the Super Bowl," he said.

Last night, he wasn't certain what, if anything, could be done to make up for the inconvenience to so many UH fans.

"I don't know what we can do," Santos said.

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.

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