Massive cable outage throws Comcast customers into a tizzy

It seems things are not going well for Comcast (CMCSA) at present, for many reasons. A day after the Justice Department thwarted its bid for the assets of Fox (FOXA) and gave the green signal to Disney (DIS), the company was found itself in a major trouble Friday when a technical glitch triggered a nation-wide outage of its services.

The service disruption put Comcast in a catch-22 situation that might distract the company from the more important task of making a fresh offer for Fox before the latter convenes its shareholder meeting to vote on the offer by Disney.

Weirdly, what caused the massive outage was a cut fiber at one of the company’s large business associates. Soon after internet, voice and video services went off the air. Comments from distressed customers flooded the social media, which promoted the company officials to post a Twitter message saying the problem was being rectified on an urgent basis. They also cautioned that since the disruption was in a backbone network, other service providers might also be affected, apparently referring to Verizon (VZ).

However, the statement did not specify by what time the snag will be fixed, which affected millions of customers including television viewers across the country. According to sources, in the Northeast region, some of the customers of Verizon also experienced cable an internet outage during the day.

What caused the massive outage was a cut fiber at one of the company’s large business associates

With more than 22 million cable subscribers and 26 million internet customers, the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based Comcast is the largest cable and internet service provider in the US.

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While the extent of the problem is not known exactly, some reports say most of the Northeast areas, Midwest, Southeast, Colorado and California have been affected. Some regions experienced coast-to-coast outage, which is the second disruption of Comcast’s services in less than a month.

Shares of Comcast ended Friday’s trading session up 2% but hovered near the one-year low they saw a couple of days ago.

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