Internet and phone service disrupted in rural northeastern Arizona

• A telecommunications outage over the weekend knocked off credit card processors and, in some circumstances, easy access to emergency services in rural northeastern Arizona.
• The outage was caused by sabotage of a fiber cable.
• Frontier Communications worked hard to restore service as soon as possible after the incident.

A telecommunications outage over the weekend knocked off credit card processors and, in some circumstances, easy access to emergency services in parts of rural northeastern Arizona.

The outage caused by sabotage of a Frontier Communications fiber cable enraged local officials in Navajo and Apache counties, who described it as part of a pattern of problems that keep people disconnected and possibly exposed.

“You go from 2022 to the 1800s,” said Lance Spivey, police chief in St. Johns, a tiny community on the border with New Mexico that lost services.

According to a Frontier spokeswoman, the business sought to restore service as soon as feasible.

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The outage knocked off internet and cellular service in much of the area that uses Frontier’s infrastructure in Arizona. Service restored occasionally until it entirely restored on Monday, according to Spivey.

Many individuals briefly cut off as a result of the outage. Spivey stated that first responders kept their radios turned on at home in case they called into service.

Spivey claims that long-term communication issues have plagued St. Johns and other rural areas for years, which he blames on Frontier.

He has requested that the Arizona Corporation Commission initiate actions that might result in fines against the corporation.