An electronics failure left parts of Iowa and the Midwest without Mediacom internet and phone services this week.
Carissa Okones of Des Moines is among the 200,000-plus Mediacom customerswho experienced an internet outage Tuesday afternoon and evening.
"I only have Mediacom because I work from home, so I’m not able to work," Okones said Wednesday morning, when all but about 130customers' connections had been restored in Des Moines, according toDown Detector, an internet outage reporting site."When we lose internet or have computer issues, we go without pay.Going in the office is not an option.I lose income andI cannot make that income up."
Mediacom, the largest cable company in Iowa, provides cable, broadband Internet and digital phone service to areasincluding the Des Moines metro, Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Dubuque, Iowa City and Waterloo.
Previously:'Major and unusual' phone and internet outage hits Mediacom customers across Iowa
Mediacom Communications Director Phyllis Peters saidthe outage Tuesday was caused byan electronics failure in a major aggregation router, a network hub. She said Mediacom engineers are working to determine the actual cause of the electronics failure, which affected customers in central, southeast and southwest Iowa, as well as some parts of Missouri and northeast Kansas.
"There's electronics all over our hundreds of thousands of miles of network," Peters said. "There's tremendous amount of electronics, and a failure can happen at some point in some piece of equipment. But this specific type of situation on an aggregation router has never been seen by our network operations center."
The internet interruption began around2:51 p.m. and, according to Mediacom, was resolved around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday.There were some intermittent outages around 6 p.m. caused by the same electronics issue "that affected a subset of those who were earlier affected," according to Peters, who went on to say the issue was not related to Tuesday's hot weather of that evening's storms.
Outage raises concerns for Iowans working from home
For Okones, the effect of internet outages is serious.
"By losing internet, I lose pay," Okones said."Therefore it can take money away from other things that are needed, like food, clothing for my kids andvehicle repairs."
Okones, a customer service representative for Intoxalock, a Des Moines-based company that makes ignition interlock devices, has been a Mediacom customer for around six years. She said her internet went out during the main outage Tuesday and did not come back on until 10 a.m. Wednesday.
According to Okones, when she first called to reportthe outage to Mediacom, a representative told her there hadnot been a confirmed outage within the past 24 hours and the issue must be with her modem. When she tried calling back shortly after, "the automated system said I was shut off due to nonpayment,but my payment was made the day prior," Okones said. On her third call to Mediacom, a representative told her that the area was experiencing an internet outage.
Okonessaid she has experienced "numerous issues with Mediacom in the past in regards to outages."
"I have lost numerous days' pay because of outages or equipment issues or waiting for a tech," Okones said. "I’d love to have an internet that doesn’t cause me to be up all night because I don't know how much in pay I’m going to lose the next day, along with whatever else is going on in life."
More:Tuesday's storm in Iowa damages several features at Principal Park in Des Moines
Ed Snuffin, a longtime West Des Moines resident and Mediacom customer, also experienced a work disruption during Tuesday's internet outage.
"Now I work from my home. I'm an IT guy, so it's extremely important it (the internet) works," Snuffin said. "There's nothing I can do if I don't have internet."
When Snuffin tried calling to report the outage to Mediacom, he received two different automated messages: First, "We're sorry, an application error has occurred" and then, "this number is temporarily unavailable". The customer app was not working either, he said.
Snuffin said he has been a Mediacom customer for "years and years" and praised the company, but he hopes to see increased communication to customers during outages.
"I think they do a lot better job now than they ever have and their customer service is significantly more responsive," Snuffin said."But they don't communicate well with the public when something happens. They don't explain, 'Hey, this wasout of our control,' and I think that's detrimental to them. Because then people are just irritated."
Grace Altenhofen is a news reporter for the Des Moines Register. She can be reached at galtenhofen@registermedia.com or on Twitter @gracealtenhofen.
