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Mystery outage strikes Florida Cingular callers

It was unclear what caused the widespread, 11-hour service interruption.

By LOUIS HAU
Published April 20, 2006

Cingular Wireless was struck Wednesday by an unusually broad 11-hour service outage that affected cellular phone customers in southwest and Central Florida.

The outage cut off service to some Cingular customers from about 2:30 a.m. Wednesday until service was fully restored about 1:30 p.m., Cingular spokeswoman Kelly Layne Starling said. The affected area extended along the Gulf Coast between Tampa and Naples, as far west as Orlando and as far north as Gainesville, she said.

Starling said she didn't know how many customers were affected.

"Obviously, we're really sorry for the inconvenience," she said, adding that customers who were affected by the outage can call a customer service representative to receive a credit for the day.

The cause of the problem wasn't immediately clear Wednesday. Starling said the outage stemmed from a failed fiber optic cable the company leases from Time Warner Telecom of Littleton, Colo. The cable connects Cingular's switching facilities in Tampa and Orlando, which route phone calls, she said.

But Time Warner Telecom spokesman Bob Meldrum said that equipment owned and operated by Cingular was the source of the problem.

Starling said the outage was not related to the integration of the company's network with AT&T Wireless, which merged with Cingular in October 2004. The outage occurred a day after Cingular announced it had completed its integration efforts around Tampa.

The outage inconvenienced Tampa Bay area residents such as Esther Kirk of Riverview, who tried to reach her husband, Edward, on his Cingular Wireless phone about 10:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Kirk, 64, wanted to tell him that she had succeeded in making a campground reservation at Hillsborough River State Park. But after 20 minutes of fruitless attempts, Kirk gave up. She said she was able to reach her husband at 2:30 p.m.

"I'm glad it wasn't an emergency," she said.

Also on Wednesday, Cingular, a joint venture between AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp., reported net income of $354-million in the quarter ended March 31, swinging from a net loss of $240-million a year earlier. AT&T said in March that it agreed to acquire BellSouth for $67-billion.

[Last modified April 20, 2006, 01:48:15]