r/saskatoon • u/ibeenmoved • 1d ago
Question ❔ Anybody know what caused the massive SaskTel outage?
My service for internet, cable, cell phone and landline in East College Park has been down since at least about 9:00 AM Thursday. It just came back on a few minutes ago at 1:15 AM Friday. That's more than 16 hours. The SaskTel outage advisory said it was due to a "cable cut". What happened? Did one of the local truck drivers who (hopefully) got fired for taking out an overpass get a new job as a backhoe operator?
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u/Lloydguy82 1d ago
While I don't know what happened. You are probably right about a backhoe operator or whatever. I remember this happened on 2nd Avenue about 12 or so years ago. The worst part was that even though it was a Sasktel line that was cut, it knocked out Shaw, Rogers, and Bell. So the worker who did it was in big shit since those three were breathing down Sasktel's necks wanting it repaired asap.
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u/Traditional_End_9540 1d ago
why would sasktel repair rogers, shaw and bell lines? bell I can understant, but rogers and shaw who use diffrent cables than sasktel does?
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u/dsmyxe 1d ago
The companies share some physical lines. They also share cell towers.
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u/Traditional_End_9540 1d ago
I realize that, if some of the cables were rogers or shaws like coax, why would sasktel be fixing it?
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u/Gedboara 1d ago
If i am understanding its because ALL the lines are Sasktels, its just the others ALSO use the same line. but Sasktel Owns it.
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u/Traditional_End_9540 1d ago
when lines are put in usually its sasktel, rogers in the same path/trench. Sasktel does not deal with coax cable.
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u/Lloydguy82 1d ago
This was a major trunk. Perhaps what happened is Sasktel cut all the company's cables when digging. I just remember like half the companies in the city were out that day.
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u/Traditional_End_9540 1d ago
It was not sasktel that cut the cables, some other company was doing work in the area and cut the cable. From what I remember no one got a line locate and found the cable when digging.
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u/Sloppy_Jeaux 1d ago
I was looking it up yesterday and CKOM said a fibre line was cut on the east side.
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u/TheLuminary East Side 1d ago
I am still out as of 6am. Looks like my phone is up but my internet is still down.
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u/ManicMonday29 1d ago
You might have to reboot your modem. Sometimes after a power outage I have to reboot mine. SaskTel’s website has instructions
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u/TheLuminary East Side 1d ago
Hahaha sometimes you just have to not take yourself too seriously.
I read your suggestion and I wanted to be like.. "Who is this person, telling me to just restart the modem? I am a professional, and I run a home lab with a k3s cluster and networking.. blah blah blah." But I was like, "nah, no need for that part of my monkey brain today. And who knows, the outage is a good time to power cycle my devices anyways."
So I restarted my modem and.. tada.. broadband connection restored. Sometimes it really is the easy solutions to fix the problem and if you don't stop to try them, you never know.
So, thanks for the tip Redditor, you saved my afternoon.
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u/ManicMonday29 1d ago
Haha that’s awesome. I don’t even understand the terms you mentioned here - I’m far from an expert. But I’ve had to reboot mine almost every time we have a power outage. Most of the time I argue with myself first and then give in and do it. Then it works and I’m ticked off at myself lol
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u/TheLuminary East Side 1d ago
The outage report on Sasktel's website says the outage is still ongoing.
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u/verioblistex 1d ago
There is 101 things that could have gone wrong, from a contractor not doing a line locate, or the contractor who originally ran the fiber line not putting in the tracer correctly, to human error when the line locate was done. Whatever it was that was a long outage. I would not have handled it we.
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u/Dapper-Ad9787 1d ago
Huh, we still got service in our part of town.
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u/NorthernFrosty 1d ago
That's consistent with a fiber optic cable being cut. It would only affect people downstream of the cut.
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u/onetobeseen 1d ago
Squirrels wreaking havoc with ... https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/squirrels-wreaking-havoc-with-power-supply-1.816766
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u/bleeplum9 1d ago
You still have a landline?
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u/verioblistex 1d ago
I still do as well. It's mostly because my older alarm system is still connected to it, but also because I live alone and for the $23 ish a month it costs me, its good piece of mind if I ever break my cell and I need help. I've only broken my phone once, and there were no emergencies, but it was good to know it was there.
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u/Traditional_End_9540 1d ago
you can get security systems that work via cell towers, even internet as well.
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u/verioblistex 1d ago
Yeah I know, if I spend hundreds upgrading my existing systems and pay increased monitoring fees to replace something that is currently meeting my needs. Then there is having to go through the entire sales pitch about selling me cameras and home automation......
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u/ibeenmoved 1d ago
Yeah, I sometimes question why. I use it as a signalling system when I’m trying to call my wife at home. She tends to leave her cell phone upstairs and then goes to the basement to watch TV at full volume and can’t hear her cell phone ringing. So we have a prearranged signal where I call the landline, which has a loud ringing phone downstairs. I call it several times, let it ring several rings each time. That’s the signal for her to go upstairs and answer her damned cell phone.
It also has to do with the bundle pricing that SaskTel uses. If I cancel any one of the three services I have, the monthly saving is minimal, so I’ve just kept it.
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u/KTMan77 Biker 1d ago
Saw a bunch of sasktel guys working at the intersection of circle and 8th this afternoon. Had a couple excavators and holes they were looking into.