Oct. 7, 2002 – About 11,000 Virgin Islands residents and businesses were unable to get on the Internet on Sunday after vandalism against Innovative Telephone equipment continued. Around 2:30 a.m. Sunday, vandals cut a major communication cable that links the offices of Choice Communications with the outside world. Choice is a locally owned Internet Service Provider.
A company spokesperson said Monday morning that most of the services had been restored.
However, phone lines into the Havensight building were still not working.
The cable cut, which affected about 65 percent of the company's customer base, was the latest in a series of attacks on Innovative equipment.
The vandalism against Innovative equipment and facilities comes in the midst of a strike by phone and cable company employees. Innovative management and the employees, members of the Steelworkers union, are at an impasse over pension benefits. The workers have manned picket lines territory-wide since Oct. 2.
But one union official doesn't believe it was the workers who sabotaged the equipment. Frederick Joseph, sub-district director of the Steelworkers Union, told Radio One, "Every time a cable goes down they blame the workers. We have talked to them. They have handled everything the legal way.
"I believe my people. I know my people. They wouldn't do that. I stand by them."
The Sunday cable cut "knocked out about 65 percent of our service because it is one of our major points for Internet connectivity," Jim Alexander, Choice Communication's director of sales and marketing, said.
Alexander said it appeared that vandals were "lashing out against all telecommunications companies and obviously all these lines are owned by Innovative."
He said emergency crews were working with Innovative engineers to restore service by re-routing the Internet date lines. "We should be up and running by Sunday afternoon…we're now re-routing the service requests."
Alexander pledged his company's complete effort to restore service as quickly as possible. "We have been down now for about 12 hours and are hoping to restore all service so we can continue business as usual on Monday morning."
He said customers with both dial-up accounts and wireless connections were affected by the cable cut "because the majority of our dial-up accounts are routed through the Havensight office."
Alexander said residents who attempted to gain access to the Internet could not even log on to the network as a result of the extensive damage. "Customers would have actually gotten no message because they simply could not log on."
Publisher's note : Like the St. Thomas Source now? Find out how you can love us twice as much — and show your support for the islands' free and independent news voice … click here.
