Thousands of mobile phone customers in the US, including
users of the Virgin Mobile service, were cut off after fibre cables
went down yesterday.
The outage began just after lunchtime on Monday, and affected
wireless traffic using the fibre system operated by Sprint
Nextel.
Virgin Mobile, as a mobile virtual network operator, relies on
the Sprint network to carry its calls. Sprint wireless end-users
and those at other companies are also affected by the outage.
Mobile networks rely on networks in the ground to link mobile
transmission stations.
A link went down between Palm Springs and Phoenix on the west
coast of the US, and then heavy rains in the Reno area took out
another cable to make matters worse.
The problem has also affected customers using wire-line
long-distance services. Knock-on effects on Sprint’s national
network have led to some customers on the east coast of the US also
being affected.
Sprint said that most customers now had their service back to
normal.