Question: Whatever happened to the underwater fiber-optic cable that was severed in the ocean, disrupting service to about 400,000 Oceanic Time Warner Cable customers in 2010?

Answer: While service was restored to most customers within 12 hours by rerouting connections, repair to the cable took about a month, according to tw telecom, a co-owner of the severed cable.

Cliff Miyake, vice president and general manager of tw telecom, said a ship was brought in from Asia to Hawaii to help fix the cable.

Miyake said the cable break was caused by abrasion as a section of the cable rubbed against a coral reef shelf a few hundred feet below the surface of the ocean between Maui and Oahu.

"We just put a whole new section in to fix it," Miyake said.

Miyake said that shortly after the break in connection, backup cable route systems enabled connections to be restored to most people.

"Since then, we have new backups put in place to prevent a similar kind of occurrence in the future," Miyake said.

The break occurred at 1:10 a.m. on July 27 and service was restored to most customers on Oahu and Kauai by 8 a.m., and Maui and Hawaii island by the afternoon.

The system delivers Oceanic’s video-on-demand and cable channel programming, major broadcast television programming, residential high-speed cable modem service and high-speed data service for government clients.

When the cable was cut, Internet protocol addresses did not know which route to take to the mainland.

Oceanic crews had to reroute connections through alternative cables connecting the islands.

Maui County officials reported that offices with telephone numbers that had the 270 prefix were unable to receive or make phone calls. Also affected were offices at the county building in Wailuku and administrative offices of the Wailuku police and fire departments.

Hawaii County Civil Defense said there was a "minor inconvenience" with Internet service. However, the agency also uses DSL Internet connections.

State Civil Defense, which uses a special dedicated line provided by Oceanic, did confirm a break occurred, but it did not affect its Internet, said Shelly Ichishita, state spokeswoman.

Bank of Hawaii experienced telephone problems on Maui and Hawaii island, but full service was restored at 10:30 a.m.

Oceanic Time Warner rents bandwidth providing data transmission capacity from the fiber-optic cable, co-owned by Colorado-based tw telecom and Wavecom Solutions, formerly Pacific Lightnet.

Tw telecom was part of Time Warner Cable until it became an independent entity in 2008.

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This update was written by Gary T. Kubota. Suggest a topic for “Whatever Happened To…” by writing Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite
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