Dixon-area fiber optic line damaged, interrupting some phone service

DIXON – A damaged fiber optic line in the Dixon area caused some phone outages Wednesday, which meant callers sometimes could not reach some of its customers.

For example, calls to Dixon and Lee County law enforcement agencies could not go through, although 911 still was working.

The problems started around 1 p.m. Wednesday, said Marc Thorson , operations director for ifiber, the Illinois Fiber Resources Group that serves both the public and private sectors in northwest Illinois and beyond.

The company is not yet sure what caused the damage, although construction is the likely culprit, Thorson said.

It expected to have services restored by midnight.

“We are doing our level best to get services up as soon as possible,” he said.

While most of the disruption was in the Dixon area, ifiber is a mid-mile network and its partners may connect with regional long-haul networks, which means customers father afield also could be affected.

Those customers aren’t known to ifiber, though, and so he could not estimate how many people might be affected, and exactly where, Thorson said.

ifiber is providing its customers with email updates on the situation.

Those with questions or concerns can call 877-753-8100 or email the Northern Illinois Monitoring Center, which contracts with ifiber and others to monitor IT systems, at nimc@niu.edu.

Correction: This story was corrected to reflect that the outage began around 1 p.m. Wednesday. The day the problem began was incorrect in the original online version. We regret the error.