Internet Outage

Comcast and Xfinity customers across Santa Fe and Los Alamos experienced internet outages Wednesday after a dump truck pulled down fiber lines at the intersection of Cerrillos Road and Richards Avenue.

The company reports the downed and damaged lines interrupted service for customers in ZIP code areas 87507, 87505 and 87501. The outage occurred around lunch time, cutting off internet access for businesses in the Midtown commercial center at Pacheco Park, including the Santa Fe Reporter’s office. Businesses downtown, in the South Capital, along the St. Francis Corridor and in the Southside also didn’t have service.

The situation left residents flocking to places like Java Joe’s on Rodeo Road, where Trinity Lara says the coffee shop’s internet was going in and out, but the business had no plans to close.

The outage frustrated customers such as Peter Wargo, principal systems architect for the National Center for Genome Resources, who tells SFR that “having one incident cause an outage for the majority of the city shows just how much we are at the mercy of a handful of internet service providers. This lack of competition and redundancy means we can now all too easily be cut off.”

Comcast crews have been working to fix the lines since the company was made aware of it. Julianne Phares, director of external affairs, tells SFR additional lines that didn’t belong to Comcast were also taken down by the truck. Phares did not provide an estimate for when service would be restored.

According to Xfinity’s website, the company is working to resolve the issue by 9 pm. The accident forced road closure headed west on Cerrillos, but street has since re-opened.

Annabella Farmer contributed reporting.