Problems with Notre Dame's Internet service provider caused a complete outage of the University's connection to the Internet from 8 to approximately 11 a.m. Thursday morning.
Dewitt Latimer, chief technology officer, said the ISP, Global Access Points, accidentally cut cables in Chicago that included part of Notre Dame's Internet connection.
"They mistakenly disconnected our fiber," Latimer said.
Notre Dame alerted the company to the outage, which then began work repairing the cable connection.
Latimer said the Global Access Points service actually did not resume until about 12:30 p.m. but the University chose to implement its secondary Internet connection for the first time Monday.
"We had already been doing work to provide us with a backup ISP," he said. "We decided that this morning was a good time to accelerate that. ... We can no longer suffer complete outages."
During the outage, on-campus users could access Webmail, Webfile and other Web pages hosted off main Notre Dame's homepage but could not view outside sites.
Latimer said Thursday's problem was unrelated to another Global Access Points Internet service outage that begun around 2 a.m. Tuesday and lasted for about an hour.
"That was routine maintenance. ... They gave us about an hour notice," he said.
The University does not anticipate further problems with the Internet connection and intends to retain Global Access Points as its primary ISP, according to Latimer. The company has provided Notre Dame's connection for about one year.
