Community hit by widespread internet outage

SANDPOINT — Internet users across Bonner and Boundary counties felt the effects of Thursday’s outage, resulting from a damaged fiber line leading into the city of Sandpoint.

“This issue has been determined to be a fiber break with our leased-line provider, which is the line Ting uses to connect Sandpoint customers to the internet,” Ting officials said on their status website early Thursday afternoon. “Ting internet has redundant connections to Sandpoint, however the fiber break has occurred in a spot where both lines converge and are on the same path. The outage with the leased-line provider is widespread and affecting a number of service providers aside from Ting.”

While Ting’s reported outages were contained within the city, Intermax Networks said via social media that the outage affected some of its customers in Bonner and Boundary counties. Intermax officials also confirmed on social media that the interruption affected multiple carriers and internet service providers in the area.

While no details were provided on how the break occurred in the fiber line, Ting said on its website that the damage was “extensive” and required significant repair.

Requests for comment had not been returned as of deadline Thursday. Ting first updated its status on the outage at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, with internet services restored by 5 p.m.

Sandpoint officials told the Daily Bee in an email that the outage was caused when a private contractor cut into a fiber line used by Intermax. A specific location of the cut line was not available at deadline.

Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.