Verizon officials say they've solved the problem that caused telephone outages throughout the north country.
But they admit they thought that before.
Officials say they believe a truck took down 250 feet of fiber optic cable in Central Square on Thursday.
When they tracked the problem down, whatever caused the damage was long gone.
Verizon crews replaced the cable and thought they had everything fixed by 1 a.m. Friday, but complaints of interrupted service kept coming in.
Officials say crews went back, replaced the same 250 of cable and had service restored by around 4 p.m.
In the meantime, a town official in St. Lawrence County is asking the state to do something about repeated phone outages.
Massena Town Supervisor Joe Gray says the lack of redundancy in the telecommunications system is the culprit, "but no one seems willing to address the problem or come up with a solution."
He says there have been phone outages at three times since he became supervisor two and a half years ago, all the result of a damaged fiber optic cable.
A phone outage likes this, Gray said, affects emergency services, business, residential and cell phone service, as well as credit card machines, fax machines and some internet service.
As a result, he said, "lives are jeopardized, property is at risk, businesses lose tens of thousands of dollars in lost commercial transactions and families cannot communicate with their loved ones and friends."
See our earlier stories here and here.
