Internet outages plagued much of Ashe and Alleghany counties nearly all day on Thursday, July 19, according to information released July 20 by local Internet service provider SkyLine Membership Corporation.
Service was restored to those areas impacted by the service outage by late that evening, with only limited intermittent Internet issues remaining in parts of Ashe and Alleghany counties, read a press release issued the next day by SkyLine Public Relations Administrator Karen Powell.
According to SkyLine officials, network equipments issues were to blame for the service interruptions and outages, which created a “cascading instability in other parts of the network,” which disrupted Internet, TV, and some voice services across the five-county SkyLine/SkyBest service area, though Powell said the majority of the company’s customers were not impacted.
According to Powell, 99 percent of the outage problems had been corrected by 8 p.m. Thursday night, though intermittent outages across Ashe and Alleghany were still reported on Friday.
“We realize exactly how important service issues are,” said Powell. “This kind of event is rare, but we take it very seriously. Our staff worked nonstop to get service back up and running as quickly as we could.”
According to Powell, SkyLine employees worked non-stop to correct the problem and restore service throughout the region.
“The company’s engineering team monitored network traffic patterns to determine the exact time and location of the interruption of service, and repaired the faulty network equipment and methodically restored service as quickly as possible,” according to the SkyLine release.
“While network issues like this are rare, we take them very seriously,’ said SkyLine Chief Executive Officer Jimmy Blevins. “Our role as a cooperative makes this type of occurrence even more personal, because our employees are dedicated to providing the best possible service to our members and customers.”
“We recognize how integral these services are to our customers, and we want to thank those affected by [the] service issue for being patient with us as we worked to restore service as quickly as possible. Providing advanced and reliable telecommunications service is our highest priority, and we pledge our continued determination to monitor our network systems and processes to ensure that this will not happen again,” said Blevins.
Established in 1951, SkyLine is a member-owned cooperative which provides a variety of telecommunications services to customers in Alleghany, Ashe, Avery and Watauga counties in North Carolina and Johnson County in east Tennessee.
Along with its current focus of building a fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP) network, SkyLine is committed to enhancing the quality of life across the region through various charitable, educational and economic development programs. Its wholly-owned subsidiary, SkyBest Communications, offers de-regulated products and services, including local calling and long distance services, business systems and networking solutions, broadband Internet services, home/ business security monitoring and medical alert, and digital TV service.
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