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Metal Thieves Cause Multi-County Phone and Internet Outage
By: Associated Press
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Scrap metal thieves targeting fiber optic cables shut down 911 service in Ohio's Appalachian region and left thousands without telephone and Internet services.
Four counties in southern Ohio were affected by the outage that started late Wednesday and lasted until Thursday afternoon.
Frontier Communications says fiber optic cables were cut and stolen, affecting 8,000 customers were affected in Pike, Scioto, Jackson and Lawrence counties at Ohio's southern tip.
Pike County Sheriff Richard Henderson says such situations are a fear for his office. He says the office receives backup form neighboring counties and police departments but callers experienced a delay in response.
Credit card readers and ATMs also were affected.
Frontier Communications says state police are investigating.