Baja Broadband restores services to a majority of customers following flood

As flooding ravaged homes and roads in Colorado it also severely damaged Baja Broadband’s communications infrastructure buried beneath. On the Baja network, one raging river destroyed fiber optic cabling while a second river made the redundant fiber feed inaccessible to reroute traffic to an alternate path. Hazardous road conditions limited access to communication facilities over the weekend and closed local offices.

“The connection point at Milliken, between Baja Broadband and Level 3 was by-passed to restore services on Monday morning at approximately 11:15 a.m.,” reported David Johnson, regional general manager for Baja Broadband in Colorado. “Baja customers without any other damage to their home or local network should be able to connect to the Internet and other Baja services now.”

Baja Broadband worked to restore services as soon as they could safely gain access. On Friday, Sept. 13, flood waters forced the closure of roads into Estes Park and Johnstown impacting the Baja offices in both locations; employees were unable to reach either office. Customer calls were re-routed to a Baja dispatch center in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

On Monday, the Baja network monitoring system indicated the majority of the company’s Colorado customers in Johnstown, Eaton, Severance, Milliken and Larimer County, as well as, Woodland Park and Arvada had connectivity restored.

However, customers in the Mad Russian subdivision in Milliken are still without service. Upon closer inspection of the Mad Russian area, the Baja Engineering team reported the area was heavily damaged. Large construction crews will be brought in to help with restoration efforts. Once Baja is able to determine a timeline for the restoration of services, the community will be notified.

Baja Broadband customers will receive a credit for the amount of time they were fully out of service.

If you need assistance, contact Baja Broadband at 1-877-422-5282.

Baja reminds customers in restored areas that if your service returned, you may need to reboot your modem. You can do so by unplugging it from the power source, waiting 2-3 minutes and then reconnecting it to power. To reboot your EMTA unplug from power, remove the battery and then wait 2-3 minutes. Then replace the battery and reconnect to power. For digital boxes, your guide information will start populating as data feeds. If this does not restore your service you are encouraged to call Baja to report your outage.