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Comcast: Verizon Service Shouldn't Drop Out Again

Verizon

Verizon users in Aspen and Glenwood Springs were stuck without service for much of Monday. Turns out the problem wasn’t with Verizon’s equipment, but with another communications company-- Comcast. 

Reporter: Verizon spokeswoman Meagan Dorsch says the company works closely with Comcast to provide service in the Roaring Fork Valley. That’s because Comcast has a very important part of the network that makes it possible to make calls, send texts… and scroll through Facebook on a cell phone. 

“Wireless is really only wireless from the cell tower itself, to our customers’ individual cell phones. There is still fiber optics, or in some cases a microwave signal, that is used to transmit the data and the calls back to our facilities.”

So Verizon handles the wireless, but needs the fiber optic infrastructure run by Comcast. In this case it was that fiber optic connection that went down on Monday. And it left Verizon’s four cell towers in the dark, so to speak. Cindy Parsons is with Comcast.

“So we had a section of our fiber optic transport equipment that failed near the Aspen and Glenwood area.”

The equipment is near I- 70, and Parsons says the glitch was a surprise.

“It is highly unusual for a piece of equipment of this nature to fail in this manner.”

Comcast has added a parallel section of fiber optic as a back up, to make sure the glitch-- a major disruption in service-- doesn’t happen again.

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