Upwards of 1 million Bright House Networks customers across the Tampa Bay area lost their telephone, cable TV and Internet service for much of Tuesday.
The outage disconnected customers from St. Pete Beach to Lakeland to Spring Hill, leaving public safety officials to urge people to use cellphones if they needed to call 911.
A software glitch appears to have caused a series of failures that, for most customers, started about 10:40 a.m. and lasted through 4 p.m. Some customers in Tampa still had no service at 5:30 p.m.
Even Bay News 9, the Bright House 24-hour news channel, went off the air.
"This was a substantial outage," said Tom Nestor, spokesman for the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, which lost internal phone systems. While Pinellas County's 911 system still operated, people who lost service couldn't dial it, Nestor said.
"If this continues to be a problem with Bright House, that would be a concern," Nestor said. "And for people with just (Internet) telephone, it may be a good idea to have a cellphone, just as a backup."
Hillsborough County 911 officials said they use Verizon. No interruptions were reported by the Hillsborough school district or the University of South Florida in Tampa. Tampa General Hospital lost its television feed.
Bright House engineers ultimately isolated the problem to a line of software within a piece of equipment that cut off service to much of the company's Tampa and Orlando service areas, Bright House spokesman Joe Durkin said.
Normally, redundant systems would prevent a service breakdown, but this breakdown overwhelmed the network.
"This was a unique event," Durkin said.
The breakdown meant calls to residential Bright House customer phone numbers were ringing directly into voice mail. Even the Bright House website appeared to be suffering glitches, with only text and hyperlinks appearing for some time.
The breakdown affected area businesses.
"We lost our Internet today, so we couldn't take credit cards, and we lost some sales," said Gary Robinson, a manager at the Fit2Run running store at International Plaza. "A lot of places all around us lost it too."
At least some Pinellas schools lost phone service, but it had been restored by midafternoon.
A check of businesses on St. Pete Beach showed sporadic outages. The Sirata Beach Resort and Conference Center had no interruptions in its Bright House service.
But Kathy Gvildys, owner of Beach Travel of Treasure Island, said service broke down at 10:30 a.m., came back about noon for five minutes and was out until 1:15 p.m.
"Forget it, trying to call Bright House," Gvildys said. "It's amazing how widespread it is. … You've got clients relying on you for emergencies and last-minute things, and you can't do anything."
Gerry Joynes of Tarpon Springs saw his cable TV service break down about noon. "I called our apartment complex office, and they said all their services were out," Joynes said.
His phone call to Bright House reached an error message that said the number was not in service, he said.
"We've called all their lines, and nothing is working," said Deanna Morris, owner of the ProGraphix location in Winter Haven. "So we went to the Bright House office near here, and there was a slew of people trying to get in. That office couldn't even get their own service working."
Martha Van Neste, who lives near University Mall in Tampa, said her service remained out at 5:30 p.m., even though she repeatedly reset her cable box.
"Luckily, I don't put all my provider eggs in one basket," Van Neste said.
"I'm calling on my Verizon land line, which works, and I use yet another company for my cellphone."
However, as the hours went by with no TV, Van Neste was losing patience, she said.
"I'm bored."
The outage disconnected customers from St. Pete Beach to Lakeland to Spring Hill, leaving public safety officials to urge people to use cellphones if they needed to call 911.
A software glitch appears to have caused a series of failures that, for most customers, started about 10:40 a.m. and lasted through 4 p.m. Some customers in Tampa still had no service at 5:30 p.m.
Even Bay News 9, the Bright House 24-hour news channel, went off the air.
"This was a substantial outage," said Tom Nestor, spokesman for the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, which lost internal phone systems. While Pinellas County's 911 system still operated, people who lost service couldn't dial it, Nestor said.
"If this continues to be a problem with Bright House, that would be a concern," Nestor said. "And for people with just (Internet) telephone, it may be a good idea to have a cellphone, just as a backup."
Hillsborough County 911 officials said they use Verizon. No interruptions were reported by the Hillsborough school district or the University of South Florida in Tampa. Tampa General Hospital lost its television feed.
Bright House engineers ultimately isolated the problem to a line of software within a piece of equipment that cut off service to much of the company's Tampa and Orlando service areas, Bright House spokesman Joe Durkin said.
Normally, redundant systems would prevent a service breakdown, but this breakdown overwhelmed the network.
"This was a unique event," Durkin said.
The breakdown meant calls to residential Bright House customer phone numbers were ringing directly into voice mail. Even the Bright House website appeared to be suffering glitches, with only text and hyperlinks appearing for some time.
The breakdown affected area businesses.
"We lost our Internet today, so we couldn't take credit cards, and we lost some sales," said Gary Robinson, a manager at the Fit2Run running store at International Plaza. "A lot of places all around us lost it too."
At least some Pinellas schools lost phone service, but it had been restored by midafternoon.
A check of businesses on St. Pete Beach showed sporadic outages. The Sirata Beach Resort and Conference Center had no interruptions in its Bright House service.
But Kathy Gvildys, owner of Beach Travel of Treasure Island, said service broke down at 10:30 a.m., came back about noon for five minutes and was out until 1:15 p.m.
"Forget it, trying to call Bright House," Gvildys said. "It's amazing how widespread it is. … You've got clients relying on you for emergencies and last-minute things, and you can't do anything."
Gerry Joynes of Tarpon Springs saw his cable TV service break down about noon. "I called our apartment complex office, and they said all their services were out," Joynes said.
His phone call to Bright House reached an error message that said the number was not in service, he said.
"We've called all their lines, and nothing is working," said Deanna Morris, owner of the ProGraphix location in Winter Haven. "So we went to the Bright House office near here, and there was a slew of people trying to get in. That office couldn't even get their own service working."
Martha Van Neste, who lives near University Mall in Tampa, said her service remained out at 5:30 p.m., even though she repeatedly reset her cable box.
"Luckily, I don't put all my provider eggs in one basket," Van Neste said.
"I'm calling on my Verizon land line, which works, and I use yet another company for my cellphone."
However, as the hours went by with no TV, Van Neste was losing patience, she said.
"I'm bored."
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