All UNL phone lines that went down last week following an off-campus construction mishap have been restored.
Windstream crews, working around the clock, finished the repairs to the final damaged cable this past weekend. Four phone cables related to university phone service were damaged by construction contractors working south of campus on May 5.
Initially, about 300 of UNL’s 8,000 land lines were affected.
After restoring service to buildings on R Street between 15th and 16th streets, crews repaired a cable dedicated to Harper and Smith residence halls, the emergency phones in the 14th and Avery parking structure, plus Neihardt Hall and the nearby vicinity. Late last week, they turned toward restoring Nebraska Union phone lines.
The fourth and final cable, which feeds Canfield Administration Building, Schramm Hall, the UNL Power Plant and some lines into the Nebraska Union, was brought back fully over the weekend.
The cables were repaired in the order in which they physically appeared to technicians in manholes on North 14th Street between O and P streets, the site of the damage.
The partial outage damaged service for UNL blue emergency phones, phones in elevators and emergency fire-alarm lines in several areas across campus. UNL officials posted signs on elevators around campus encouraging those getting on the elevators to be sure to carry a cell phone, or to be sure that someone in their party was carrying a cell phone, in the event of an emergency.
