Outage hits AT&T cable Internet service

A problem with a backbone router Wednesday brought down AT&T Broadband's cable Internet service for nearly three hours for customers in several parts of the U.S.

The outage began Wednesday afternoon after a problem with a major backbone router in the Chicago area, and lasted about two hours and 55 minutes, according to Sarah Eder, a spokeswoman for AT&T Broadband, in Englewood, Colorado. By approximately 3:30 p.m. Pacific time, the service had been restored.

It began by affecting customers on the former network of Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI), on which AT&T provides services in Seattle, Salt Lake City, Denver, Chicago, Dallas, the San Francisco Bay Area and Portland, Oregon, Eder said. The problem later spread to some customers on the former MediaOne Group Inc. network.

AT&T Broadband, a division of AT&T Corp., has about 1.8 million customers nationwide, Eder said. She could not estimate how many customers were affected by the outage. AT&T Broadband provides Internet services primarily to consumers.

AT&T does not provide cable Internet customers with an alternative method of accessing the Internet, Eder said. The outage affected only Internet service, she added. AT&T also provides television and telephone service via cable to some customers.

Customers who have concerns about the outage should contact the company at http://help.broadband.att.com, Eder said.