Cable cut snarls toll-free, long-distance calling

Long-distance phone and Internet users on the Cape and elsewhere in Southeastern Massachusetts may have noticed problems with their service Tuesday.

While setting a utility pole, Taunton Municipal Lighting workers cut into two of Verizon’s fiber-optic cables in Raynham on Tuesday, affecting some long-distance telephone and Internet service customers throughout the southeastern part of the state, said Verizon spokesman Richard Colon.

”It’s possible some dialers on the Cape had difficulty calling long-distance numbers,” Colon said, adding that there might also have been problems with 800 numbers.

The cables were fixed by yesterday morning, he said.

Yesterday afternoon, a West Yarmouth medical device firm, Spinal Technology Inc., reported that it was still having communication problems after service was initially disrupted Tuesday.

The company makes custom spinal braces for medical conditions such as scoliosis or for post-surgical care. It operates a manufacturing facility near the United Parcel Service Co. airline headquarters in Louisville, Ky., to ensure items can be shipped quickly for emergencies, the company’s information technology consultant Richard Gregory-Allen said.

The company uses its 800 number and long-distance service to take calls from customers all over the world, he said.

Gregory-Allen said that starting Tuesday, incoming 800 and long-distance calls, all outgoing calls, the Internet and the data service used to communicate with the company’s Louisville factory were not working. By yesterday afternoon, incoming 800 number and outgoing call problems had been fixed, but the other services were not, he said.

Gregory-Allen said the company has had a number of problems with communication services on the Cape in the past, and has contingency plans to handle those issues.

”It hasn’t shut us down,” he said. ”It’s just caused us a lot of hassle.”

Colon said he was unable to say whether Spinal Technology’s service problems were caused by the cable cut. Salt water and wind-driven rain can damage cables, and may be among the factors affecting service on the Cape, he said.

”The Cape is an area that has a fair degree of corrosive weather,” he said.

TD Banknorth locations on the Cape had problems with long-distance service Tuesday as well, but those had been fixed by yesterday, said Marlene Weir, vice president of community relations for the bank.

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