Phone outage affects About 120,000 Verizon Hawaii customers in Kailua and Kalihi could not make telephone calls this morning because of a fiber optic cable cut.
120,000 customers
Service later restored to Kalihi,
but Kailua has limited service
Star-Bulletin staffVerizon officials said one of their technicians at the Kalihi office cut the cable accidentally though they are not sure at this time what he was doing when it happened.
The cable cut happened about 9 a.m., and since then Verizon has restored service to the Kalihi area. Kailua remains down, and Verizon officials say anyone with a 261, 262, or 263 prefix can only call and receive from the same prefixes, not to or from other prefixes.
Verizon officials also say that because the cable carried voice and data traffic some bank automated teller machines were not working.
Customers getting gasoline at some local gas stations also said they had to pay cash because the pay-at-the-pump credit machines were not working.
Verizon officials also said a separate incident has affected phone service on Maui.
Though Maui residents can call other Maui residents, they cannot call out of Maui.
Verizon says it is still trying to assess what has happened there.