MONTPELIER, Vt. - FairPoint Communications says a problem that occurred during routine maintenance led to a loss of high-speed Internet service for thousands of customers in Vermont and New Hampshire.
Spokesman Jeff Nevins says the hardware problem knocked out service for all of Vermont and part of New Hampshire on Thursday.
With about 1,800 FairPoint workers on strike in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, a management employee was performing the maintenance late Wednesday on equipment that routes Internet traffic. The first outages were reported early Thursday.
Nevins said service is being restored. He said customers can reboot their modem if their service isn't restored automatically.
He couldn't say how many customers lost service in Vermont and New Hampshire. Maine customers were not affected.