Time Warner Cable says Internet service restored after nationwide outage

If you are a Time Warner Cable Internet customer and couldn’t get access Wednesday morning, you were far from alone.

Just after 5 a.m., TWC’s Internet access went down in parts of the Raleigh area after being sluggish.

But the outage was national.

“We believe service has been restored to all affected customers,” Time Warner Cable spokesperson Scott Pryzwansky told WRAL.com just before noon. “We’re still investigating the root cause and cannot give you a definitive number of affected customers.”

Two hours earlier., TWC said service was largely restored after a problem that occurred during routine maintenance caused the outage that lasted for hours.

The company is still investigating the cause of the problem, which occurred with its Internet backbone, the paths that local or regional networks connect to in order to carry data long distances.

Some customers also complained about problems with TV and phone service, based on media reports and emails sent to WRAL.

WRAL readers vent anger: WRAL asked readers to tell us how the Internet outage affected them. They responded in anger and frustration.
Your input wanted: How did your business deal with the hours-long, nationwide Time Warner Cable Internet outage early Wednesday? Send your solutions to rsmith@wral.com

A network map about TWC illustrates where outages have occurred and provides updates.

The company says the problem affected all of its markets and started at 4:30 a.m. and was largely restored by 6 a.m., and updates continue to bring all customers back online.

Tim Farrar, an analyst at TMF Associates said there are major outages of at least one telecom provider every year, although typically they aren’t fully national.

“AT&T had a major outage back in April, Comcast had one last October. Verizon Wireless had several national outages on its 4G network back in 2012,” he said. “Usually it is related to bugs in new technology, and occasionally to routine maintenance where someone did something wrong.”

TWC first noted problems via Twitter shortly after 4 a.m.

Soon, customers were calling and millions began tweeting.

To provide updates, TWC resorted to Twitter as well.

“We’re working to restore services to all areas as quickly as possible; no ETR,” TWC tweeted.

“Tweets will be delayed while this is addressed.”

ETR means “estimated time of return.”

The company said a problem that occurred during routine maintenance caused the nationwide outage.

TWC, which is being acquired by rival cable company Comcast, has about 11.4 million high-speed Internet subscribers nationwide.

On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission said Time Warner Cable, based in New York, would pay $1.1 million to resolve outage reporting violations.

A network outage map shows areas affected include: