By Barry Eitel
SAN FRANCISCO
Internet connections in Silicon Valley and elsewhere were disrupted Tuesday in what broadband companies are calling a "coordinated attack".
Three high-capacity "backbone" lines that provide Internet service to thousands were cut in northern California near Sacramento. The fiber optic cables are used by Wave Broadband, which serves more than 420,000 customers along the West Coast, including tech hub Silicon Valley.
"Three major fiber cables connecting the region have been physically severed in what appears to be a coordinated attack on multiple Internet carriers," according to a statement from Wave.
Crews are working on fixing the disruption and authorities are investigating the attack, Wave continued, but the company did not know how long it would take to finish repairs.
The cables are owned by two Colorado-based companies, Level 3 and Zayo. Level 3 acknowledged the disruption and said it had crews on the ground working to resolve the issue. The outage was formidable enough to shut down the offices of several Californian cities for the day.
Other broadband companies are reporting outages throughout the country, including Comcast, the largest provider in the U.S., serving more than 110 million Americans in 40 states. Large outages for Comcast were reported Tuesday near San Francisco, Seattle and on the East Coast between Washington and Boston.
Comcast has not reported on the reasons for the outage or released information on when Internet service would be restored for those affected.
The cut cords function as powerful data superhighways linking the West Coast to the rest of the nation. These fiber optic cables connect hubs in different cities and transfer huge swaths of data back and forth. Other cables deliver Internet to homes and businesses from the cables.
While outages caused by weather or computer glitches are common, direct attacks are rare due to the technical knowledge required to identify and destroy specific cables.
