Thousands of Comcast Xfinity users in the Sacramento area faced a significant interruption of service this past weekend, with outages impacting both internet and television for residential and business clients. The interruption began midday on Saturday and, according to the company's outage map, affected a sizable portion of Sacramento County; precise numbers on those affected, however, have not been released. Despite initial estimations predicting a 5 p.m. restoration, the company pushed back the timeline, predicting service revival by 10 p.m that evening, as reported by ABC10.
The source of the outage was traced back to what has been described as "network damage," however, the scope and full impact took some time to discern as updates trickled in and frustration mounted among customers, Sacramento businesses found themselves caught in the crossfire, specifically Beers Books which voiced their vexation as they were situated amidst their Independent Book Store Day celebrations troubled with their point-of-sales systems dropping offline due to the outage, Beers Books lamented their predicament via an Instagram post, declaring, "Words can't express how frustrating and deleterious this is for an independent bookstore like ours. We've invested many hours and dollars into bringing Sacramento quality and affordable books, and these weekend sales often make or break our ability to make ends meet," as reported by CBS News Sacramento.
Subsequent investigations by Comcast pointed to deliberate sabotage. Jon Koriel, a public affairs manager for Comcast California, elaborated on the nature of the incident stating, "The vandals seemed to have burned a utility pole and cut our fiber wire, which resulted in disrupting services to several customers served by that portion of Comcast’s network," information obtained from an ABC10 interview. The deliberate act has prompted communication and collaboration with local law enforcement as Comcast aims to address and prevent future vulnerabilities to their infrastructure.
While the majority of the disruptions have since been resolved, the company continues to work towards full restoration of services for the remaining customers. CBS News Sacramento has been in contact with Comcast, seeking a statement which has yet to be issued; as of this report, details concerning the perpetrators or the motive behind the vandalism remain undisclosed and the investigation is ongoing.
