Router is blamed in Internet, cable crash

— More than 100,000 western and Northwest Arkansas cable customers who hoped to chill out in front of their television or surf the Internet on Monday night got an unwelcome surprise from franchise service provider Cox Communications.

For three hours, roughly 8 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., the cable company scrambled to find and fix the problem that caused its TV and Internet services to fail.

While some customers noticed many channels were out, others lost Internet service entirely.

“An outage of this size is very uncommon,” company spokesman Kelly Zega wrote in an e-mail Tuesday. “As with any service interruption, we immediately worked to identify the issue and took rapid steps towards restoration.”

Cox, the nation’s thirdlargest cable provider, serves 71 communities in Northwest Arkansas, the Fort Smith River Valley area, and in and around Harrison, Berryville and Eureka Springs in north Arkansas. Cox is the largest cable provider in Arkansas, company officials said. The problems also extended into some parts of Kansas and eastern Oklahoma.

Full service was restored late Monday, the company said. Any customers still experiencing problems should call Cox for technical support, Zega wrote.

The malfunction involved a computer router that experienced memory errors and partially failed. When that happened, backup equipment didn’t kick in, officials said.

“Cox is working with the equipment vendor at this time to ensure a similar failure does not occur in the future,” Zega wrote. “Cox Communications wishes to sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused our Arkansas customers.”

Customers who experienced failures may be eligible for a credit on their bills for the missed service. More information about the credit is available by calling Cox at (866) 719-9419.

“We would discuss that with them individually, to verify there was an outage on their equipment,” Zega wrote. “But if there is any concern, we encourage them to talk with us about any issue.”

Consumers can get advice regarding complaints about any company from the Arkansas Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division. Forms are online at www. gotyourbackarkansas.org.

Business, Pages 28 on 11/14/2012

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