Mediacom outage impacts five cities

A cut in fiber-optic cables near Riverside knocked out Mediacom service to five communities on Wednesday morning.

According to Phyllis Peters, Mediacom senior director of communications, a survey company was driving stakes into the ground near Riverside at 11:15 a.m., Tuesday as part of an erosion study being conducted.

'The crew driving the stakes hit a bundle of fiber in the ground,” Peters said.

She said that the underground cables are owned by Windstream.

'In a few areas of Iowa, Mediacom leases fiber lines from another telecommunications provider, Windstream,” she said.

A Windstream repair crew went to the site Tuesday to address the problem.

The fiber was not completely cut, and digital signals were still being transported.

Wednesday morning, the Windstream crew was back at the site.

'Apparently, as repair crews did their work to excavate the fiber where it would need repairs, additional damage occurred,” Peters said. 'This is a network section where Mediacom leases fiber from (Windstream).”

The service interruption impacted Mediacom customers in Washington, Riverside, Kalona, Wellman and Lone Tree.

All Mediacom services – Internet, cable and phone – were affected in those communities.

Service was restored by noon Wednesday.

'We really regret that something like this occurs,” she said. 'We certainly understand how our customers – everyone – depends on a 24/7 connection, and that is what they get at a high percentage of the time, but not in this unanticipated case.”