Internet for area schools and institutions impacted by the cut fiber optic lines are now operational.

Interim Executive Director at KanREN Bradley Hook says that yesterday was a highly unusual day as a total of four physical disruptions occurred throughout their service area. Because of the redundancies in their network, some outages were not felt. Hook went on to say that in the case of Pittsburg State University, the first of the redundant fiber lines were cut by Evergy construction crews yesterday morning and traffic was rerouted through Wichita until a Cox construction crew cut the second line later in the afternoon. Hook says the owners of the fiber routes were able to restore one of the routes around 3 am, which brought PSU and all local entities who connect through that location online at that time.

Finally, Hook says that simultaneous fiber outages in four geographically diverse portions of the state is unheard of in the entire history of KanREN’s network.