Update: Mediacom expects internet service to be restored Tuesday night in Ottawa, Streator areas

Mediacom is hoping for full restoration of internet service in the Ottawa and Streator area between 10 and 11 p.m. Tuesday.

At about noon Tuesday, a crew was setting utility poles in the ground at a location two miles south of Sibley, in Ford County, and in the process of placing those poles into the ground, the crew cut into Mediacom fiber optic lines.

“We regret the disruption of services to our customers,” said Phyllis Peters, senior director of communications at Mediacom. “This was an accident we could not have anticipated, and it was not our company doing the work with the utility poles. Our network construction and fiber splicing crews arrived quickly and are working to repair and splice all of the glass fibers in that portion of our network.”

The accident severed Mediacom’s network fiber along a key transport line. It has disrupted Mediacom services for customers in Pontiac, Streator, Ottawa and several other communities in Boone, Bureau, Henry, La Salle, Livingston, McHenry and Mercer counties.

The impact of this fiber cut affects high-speed internet / broadband signals, as well as phone service, Peters said. In some areas, video service has been affected as well.

“We have had excavation crews at the site and two splicer crews,” Peters said. “They have had to dig out the fiber optic lines and prep them. The two splicer crews are ready to fuse the fibers and restore services as soon as possible. Over the next few hours, as fibers are fused, services will be restored for the signals that travel on those fibers.”