MILILANI (HawaiiNewsNow) - A rare break in an undersea fiber-optic cable Tuesday morning, left around 400,000 people without Internet, phone and TV service, for 12 hours in some cases.
The cable's still broken, but by late in the afternoon, service was back up.
The break happened just after 1 a.m., 30 miles from Kihei, 3,000-feet below the surface. It could take up to five weeks to find out the exact cause.
"It's a pretty sturdy cable, but anything could've gone wrong and so we look to finding that solution," Oceanic Time Warner Cable Vice-President of Operations, Norman Santos said.
Until that time, Oceanic has re-routed its services through different undersea cables throughout the state and back to Los Angeles.
"This has certainly been a frustrating experience for us, something that's out of our control," Santos said. "Here at Oceanic, we sympathize with our customers but we're working towards a solution."
And despite the many headaches it caused, Oceanic says it presented a unique opportunity for them.
"We never had a situation like this happen to us before, so now as we find these secondary routes, we're going to work to at least keeping them active, so that we will have alternative cables out there," Santos said.
Oceanic says they aren't sure yet if they'll give any refunds at this time.
Its normal policy is to not give any, unless services are out for more than 24 hours.
TW Telecom, a local communications company, owns the cable. Oceanic rents space from them.
"We take this very seriously and I just hope that our customers bear with us," Santos said.
For those still having trouble with Internet services, officials recommend you unplug the cable for 20 seconds then plug it back in. Service should return.
Oceanic trouble line: 625-8282
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