UPDATE at 2:59 p.m.: Service has been restored for customers in parts of the Tennessee area who may have been affected by the fiber cut, according to AT&T spokesperson Ann Elsas.
Elsas said in a statement that the fiber cut was caused by another company earlier today.
"We worked as quickly as possible to repair the damage and apologize for any inconvenience this caused," Elsas said in an email.
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UPDATE: AT&T officials have stated that some customers may be affected by fiber damage in the Shelbyville, Tullahoma and Chattanooga areas.
"We are working as quickly as possible to fix this and apologize for the inconvenience," said an AT&T representative in an email.
As of 10:30 am, EPB testing provided initial indications that the problem may be resolved for "Fi Phone" customers, according to EPB officials. They stated AT&T may still be working on the line, which could cause further issues, but that all call services seem to be restored now.
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ORIGINAL STORY: Hamilton County officials say the 911 service center is not receiving any landline calls because of "a major fiber cut in the AT&T system" but cell phone calls are still getting through.
"At this point we are trying to determine the scope and impact of the outage, but it appears to be very large and wide spread. We have received a report that Knox County is being impacted as well," Hamilton County Emergency Communications District executive director John Stuermer said in a statement. "Anyone needing emergency services should use their cellular devices to call E9-1-1 until advised otherwise."
The outage is being reported as far away as Shelbyville, Tennessee, and into Walker County, Georgia.
Walker County has set up a temporary bank of cell numbers for residents to reach 911 in the event of an emergency. Please dial one of these numbers to reach Walker County 911:
- 423-443-6345
- 423-443-6543
- 423-443-7377
- 423-443-7825
EPB officials said they took steps to ensure that landline phone services for 911 calls operated normally. In addition, EPB re-routed as much call traffic around the problem as possible to reduce impacts to our customers.
Customers with questions or other problems can visit EPB.com.