Telephone service to the Urbana City Building was fully restored about 9:45 a.m. today (July 18), as AT&T crews worked around the clock to splice together thousands of copper lines that were accidentally severed Friday afternoon by a city contractor.
The accident has left a significant number of land-line customers in Urbana without service and full restoration of service might take as long as Friday. AT&T has had crews of eight working on splicing together the copper lines, working 24 hours a day, since this weekend.
Five cables, each containing 2,400 pairs of lines, were damaged in the accident, two of them completely severed.
The incident occurred early Friday afternoon, when a city contractor was installing a new street light and damaged a large AT&T phone duct that had multiple cables in it, according to John Collins, Public Works operation manager.