CDE Lightband, the city’s provider of fiber internet in Clarksville, continues to have service issues into the weekend. The company claims their fiber backbone line has been cut twice in two cities in two states, within two days. As of late Friday, the city of Austin was unable to confirm their crews caused the damage CDE Lightband claims.
Clarksville’s primary provider of internet services went ‘data dark’ on the morning of Wednesday, March 4th, with services for all its customers, including the county government and many local government-run public-facing websites, and phone services across the city. A few hours after the outage, the company announced that a crew had cut through a fiber trunk line in Memphis, TN, and repairs would take a few hours. A half-day later, the service came back up, but the announcement was the repairs were only temporary, and a long-term fix remained to be completed.
Then, on March 6th, two days later, the company announced ” Our temporary re-route for our fiber line has lost its connection. We are working with them to get it resolved. Our primary route through Nashville is still not accessible and won’t be for a few more days. We will continue to work swiftly and update you as soon as possible”.. leading everyone to believe the problem was still in Memphis. However, the company would not stand by this statement, only hours later, now claiming the problem was a new cut line in Austin, Texas.
At 5 a.m. Saturday, CDE Lightband updated customers with the following statement: ” the underground fiber damage in Austin is extensive. To restore connections more quickly, a temporary repair is being made by placing 400 feet of fiber on poles. Estimated time of full repair is a minimum of 8 hours. “
Eventually, after hundreds of comments on social media, the company announced that customers could ‘request’ a service credit on their next bill once service was restored. No details were provided on how the amount would be calculated. Customers requesting credit should contact 931-648-8151 or email broadband.support@cdelightband.com per the post.
A spokesperson for the city of Austin, reached late Friday, was unable to confirm their crews were responsible for cutting through any fiber internet line, as claimed by CDE Lightband. This is a developing story. CDE Requests that customers wait for the service to be restored before requesting a credit to their next bill.
