[Infowarrior] - CA: Phone service sabotaged for thousands

[Richard Forno]

Phone service sabotaged for thousands

Henry K. Lee,Ryan Kim, Chronicle Staff Writers

Thursday, April 9, 2009

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/09/BAP816VTE6.DTL&type=printable

(04-09) 11:39 PDT SAN JOSE -- Vandals cut four AT&T fiber-optic cables  
in San Jose early this morning, knocking out landline and cellular  
phone service to thousands of residential customers and businesses in  
southern Santa Clara County and in Santa Cruz and San Benito counties,  
authorities said.

The fiber-optic cables were severed shortly before 1:30 a.m. along  
Monterey Highway north of Blossom Hill Road in south San Jose, police  
Sgt. Ronnie Lopez said.

Police used yellow tape to cordon off the area, which is near railroad  
tracks, as investigators and phone company workers descended into an  
underground vault where the cables are located.

"We're treating this as a crime scene," Lopez said.

Customers of Verizon as well as AT&T are without service, receiving  
only a fast busy signal or a recorded message saying the network is  
unavailable when they try to make a call.

The outage is affecting 911 service, meaning people who have an  
emergency will have to get to a police or fire station or hospital on  
their own if they need help.

Extra sheriff's deputies, firefighters and police officers are on the  
streets in the affected areas, authorities said. Additional ambulances  
are on hand at St. Louise Hospital in Gilroy.

"We're having a more visual presence out there in the field," said  
Sgt. Don Morrissey, Santa Clara County sheriff's spokesman. "We're out  
there to be the conduit, if you will. We're trying to bridge that  
communication gap between emergency services and citizens."

Verizon spokesman Jon Davies said the outage was first reported to the  
company at 1:25 a.m. He said about 52,000 of the company's landline  
customers were affected in the Gilroy and Morgan Hill areas.

Both Verizon and Verizon Wireless rely on AT&T, the dominant local  
carrier, to carry their phone traffic back to their networks.

Verizon Wireless customers were also affected in southern Santa Clara  
County and from Watsonville to Scotts Valley in Santa Cruz County.

There was no word on when phone service would be restored.

E-mail the writers at hlee at sfchronicle.com and rkim at sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/09/BAP816VTE6.DTL