A majority of Pagosa area residents found themselves isolated late Tuesday when phone and Internet services went down due to a fiber optic cut just outside of Bayfield.

According to Kim Valiquette, manager of Marketing and Communications for CenturyTel, “Several thousand customers were affected, with no calls in or out of Pagosa Springs for a little over six hours.”

Valiquette said the line was cut at just past 3 p.m. and that service was restored approximately at 10:30 p.m.

The cable damage occurred near where an excavation company was working on a water line just east of U.S. 160 and County Road 521, near Bayfield. The cable, owned by Qwest, carries signals for a number of companies including CenturyTel as well as several local cellular phone service providers. In fact, many Pagosa area cell phone users also reported limited or no service.

The outage also affected Rocky Mountain Cable Internet service, a fact confirmed by a company representative.

jim@pagosasun.com