Cox Phone Outage Hinders Service For Business Customers - FOX 42: Omaha News, Sports and Weather; kptm.com |

Update:

Leah Uko

OMAHA (KPTM) – Hundreds of business owners and employees were annoyed about their phone service being down for hours Tuesday.

Many Cox Communications business customers across the country were not able to make or get calls. The phone outage happened around 9:30 a.m. FOX 42 News later got confirmation that service was restored around 10 p.m.

The repair came too late for one popular food franchise that was left short on cash and with hungry and confused customers.

Three silent phones left employees with little work to do during their shift.

"We've probably lost $1,500 of business. That's a lot of sandwiches," Cameron Markey, the General Manager of the Jimmy John's restaurant on North 40^th Street. "I still have 8 more hours to go."

Markey sent five of his 20 employees home after Cox Communications told him the restaurant's phone lines would be down for hours.

"It's not like you can take care of the business tomorrow like you're calling an office or something or doctor's office or whoever," Markey said. "We need that business right now."

A large portion of Jimmy John's revenue comes from deliveries customers place over the phone. Markey said he believes many customers ordered at other Jimmy John's locations in Omaha that don't use Cox.

"We were steady over lunch, but no where near as busy as we have been," Eric Brunt, the delivery biker said.

Some customers, like Rena Witherspoon who works down the street, gave up on calling and physically went in to place her order.

"I dialed Jimmy John's twice. I kept dialing. I hung up and they didn't answer. Just get the phones working," Witherspoon continued while laughing and holding her sandwich. "Because I usually have Jimmy John's at least twice a week."

Many businesses posted complaints on Cox's Facebook page.

Cox's Director of Public Affairs, Gail Graeve gave her statement to FOX 42 News:

"Cox Business continues to work on the phone service outage that's impacting some of our business customers.  This outage does not impact residential customers," the statement continues. "This afternoon, we began to restore calls for our business customers impacted by today's outage. Our technical support teams are working diligently to restore service as soon as possible.   We will share more information with our customers once available.  We sincerely apologize."

Graeve, later confirmed that all business customers' phone service is being restored. She noted that some might experience technical difficulties because technical support will be testing the monitor systems.

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OMAHA (KPTM) - Cox Customers across the country are voicing their frustration after land line phone service went down Tuesday.

Business owners have posted complaints to the company's Facebook page, and many businesses in Omaha and Council Bluffs have been working to provide alternative ways for their customers to reach them.

The outage affected 911 emergency dispatch offices in Council Bluffs, but a supervisor there told FOX 42 News only phones within their offices were affected. No emergency dispatch in the area says it was affected.

We talked to the manager of one local restaurant who depends on telephones to do business. We will have more on that tonight following the debate.