WVA Phone Outage Hits Hospitals, 911 Centers

A massive telephone service outage is affecting thousands in West Virginia, after FiberNet had a network failure that affected both its primary and backup systems. The problem began at 5:30am and continues to persist five hours later. Hospitals, fire departments, businesses and homes are affected.

According to individuals in the area, West Virginia's capital of Charleston is affected including the city's main hospital, along with Wirt, Wood, Mingo and Mercer counties. 911 call centers in Brooke and Hancock counties are also having problems. "Although no estimated time to repair is available at this point, FiberNet is working diligently to resolve this problem just as quickly as possible," the company said in a statement on its Web site.