Newing College lost wireless Internet, cable TV and fire alarms’ connections to police and fire departments for seven hours yesterday after a construction crew accidentally severed a fiber optic cable.

Binghamton University sent out a Rave Alert text message and a B-Line email to the student body at 10 a.m. yesterday about the communications outage.

“A fiber optic cable was accidentally cut, leaving Newing College without functional phone, network or communications lines,” stated the Rave Alert and B-Line post.

Physical Facilities spokeswoman Karen Fennie correctly predicted that Newing’s communication lines would be operative by the end of the day yesterday.

“[They] have to replace a conduit,” Fennie said, before the fix was made. “[The conduit] provides for phone lines, TV, card access, etc.”

Fennie also said that the construction company on site was overseeing the repairs. This was confirmed by William Ziegler, faculty master of Newing College and associate professor of computer science.

“The cable was cut accidentally by the construction crew performing excavation, they took responsibility and brought in the people needed to get the repair done quickly,” Ziegler stated in an email.

The B-Line alert said that the University had started a fire watch in Newing due to the severing of fire alarms’ connections to dispatchers.

“A fire watch has been set up and repairs are underway, though it is not known how long it will take to complete repairs,” the B-Line stated.

The repairs were completed by 5 p.m. Monday evening, with some exceptions in Bingham Hall.

“The fiber optic cable that was accidentally cut earlier today has been repaired and all network services, including data, TV, Internet, card access and fire alarms have been restored in Newing College with the exception of phones in Bingham Hall, which will take another day or so for repairs to be complete,” the B-Line stated.

Ziegler said he thought the problem was handled quickly.

“While it is unfortunate that the cable was cut, in light of the circumstances, I would say the repair was done very quickly and I am happy with the quick response,” Ziegler said.

Students, though, expressed frustrations with the outage.

“I couldn’t get on the Internet all day,” said Irene Blumberg, a sophomore majoring in English. “I needed to send emails to professors, but couldn’t. And printing was down since it’s wireless. I hope it never happens again.”