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Hundreds In Burlington Without Phone And Internet Service; Could Be Weeks Until Restored

We got a copy of a letter from the Burlington Downtown Corporation saying it could be weeks before everyone is back up and running.

BURLINGTON, N.C. -- AT&T says another company accidentally cut their phone and internet lines in downtown Burlington.

We got a copy of a letter from the Burlington Downtown Corporation saying it could be weeks before everyone is back up and running.

Weeks.

So, why that long?

Because that other cable company went right through five tubes of thousands of tiny cables.

So workers are having to piece together these thousands of cables by hand, which is not a quick task.

The damage area takes up about half a city block of East Davis street and has closed at the corner of South Spring Street, and East Davis Street.

One worker told me it's some of the worst damage he has ever seen.

Plus, it's not just downtown.

The workers I spoke with, and the letter from the Burlington Downtown Corporation say folks are affected all the way out to Glen Raven, which is about 3 miles.

Wendy Geise lives in Burlington and has AT&T internet.

She says she hasn't had a complete interruption in service, but her and her son were just talking about a few issues they were having.

"We rely on our internet, and when it's not there it's a problem... That's a huge problem, so I really feel bad for the people that don't have cell phones or rely on their landlines... I know school just got out yesterday, and kids need a lot of bandwidth to play the games they want to play," said Geise.

Geise knows problems with internet and landlines can range to small, like not being able to play video games -- to big -- like not being able to call an ambulance for help.

We reached out to AT&T about these numbers, and we got this statement.

They wrote, "Some customers in the Burlington area may be affected by cable damage caused by another company. Technicians are working as quickly as possible to make repairs. We appreciate your patience as we make progress to restore service."

We also reached out to the other company, and they did not get back to us.

We will keep you updated on when service is restored. We also asked AT&T if those customers will still have to pay for all time their service wasn't working.

They haven't gotten back to us with an answer.

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