Name: A shallow communications cable cut during school sprinkler work disrupts Beaver Island Internet service, 2005
Start: 2005-06-13
End: 2005-06-17
Location: Beaver Island

Locator map: Beaver Island highlighted within the Beaver Island archipelago — Took place at Beaver IslandLocator plate © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0); depths NOAA; names USGS GNIS. How the plates are drawn.

Event

Dates: 2005-06-13 – 2005-06-17
Kind: Outage
Where: Beaver Island
Eras: Modern era
Concepts: communicationinfrastructurecommunityeducation
Within: Beaver Island

Summary

In June 2005, Beaver Island experienced an Internet outage after a shallow communications cable near the Community School was struck during sprinkler work. Local phone technician Rick reported restoring service by placing the cable deeper and later explained that the contractor had called MISS DIG but the cable locator gave erroneous readings.

Evidence limits

The thread provides a contemporaneous local account and a follow-up from the technician involved. It does not identify the carrier, preserve an outage log, or independently establish the cable’s ownership, original installation depth, or exact interruption duration.

Sources

Beaver Island Forum, “Internet \"Crash\",” June 13–17, 2005.
Participants reported an island-wide Internet outage after a sprinkler contractor struck a communications cable at the school. Local phone technician Rick later explained that the cable had been buried unusually shallow, the contractor had called MISS DIG, and the cable locator had produced erroneous readings; he reported having the locator calibrated. This is a contemporaneous local account, not a carrier incident report or independent technical inspection.
forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 00 · t000369

Added 7 August 2026. Recent changes

Cite this article

Beaver Island Archive, “A shallow communications cable cut during school sprinkler work disrupts Beaver Island Internet service, 2005”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/events/beaver-island-internet-cable-cut-school-sprinkler-outage-2005/, accessed [date], citing Beaver Island Forum, “Internet \"Crash\",” June 13–17, 2005..

Last revised 2026-08-07. Fill in [date] with the date you read it — this page is static and cannot know that.

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