Police probe vandalized cable that caused big Arizona outage

By David Schwartz PHOENIX (Reuters) - Authorities are investigating an "act of vandalism" in Phoenix that knocked out telephone and Internet service for several hours and affected emergency calls, police said on Thursday. Officers are trying to determine who cut through a pipe containing a fiber-optic cable on the outskirts of the city, leading to the outage on Wednesday, which hit northern Phoenix and large parts of the north of Arizona. "Our investigators are working diligently right now trying to find out who may have done this and why," said Officer James Holmes, a Phoenix police spokesman. "We're hoping the public may have seen someone in the area at the time of the incident." The four-inch-thick pipe, which carries a CenturyLink cable, was found sliced through in an area where it is exposed to the elements as it crosses a desert wash about a quarter of a mile from a residential area, Holmes said. Police said the investigation is in its early stages, but that the pipe may have been vandalized by thieves looking to steal metal. Authorities said the pipe was cut at about noon on Wednesday, prompting almost immediate complaints from customers of outages. CenturyLink spokesman Alex Juarez said Internet, television and cellular services were affected, but customers were able to make local calls. Emergency 911 calls were rerouted. In a statement, he said most of the company's customers in northern Arizona were affected. He declined to elaborate on how many people were affected. He said service began to return about six hours later and was fully restored by 3 a.m. on Thursday. (Reporting by David Schwartz; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Leslie Adler)