This is a developing story.
Update 5:15 p.m. Friday: Elise Augustson, a teacher at Auke Bay Elementary School, said she was frustrated by the outage. While classes were able to run as normal during the day, it made it difficult for her to complete work. Her cellphone was working at the school despite having no internet, but when she left, her phone stopped working. She went to AT&T in Juneau after the school day concluded to find out what was going on.
“Then my phone was magically working,” she said.
AT&T has cell service and internet available at its physical location, which employees said was possible through a cell booster. Employees speculated that a cell booster could be how Augustson could use her phone at the school, but no one was sure. AT&T in Juneau is open until 8 p.m. Friday and is scheduled to be open 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday, then 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday.
A sign posted on the door of AT&T in Juneau on Friday estimates the outage will be fixed by noon on Saturday, March 1, 2025. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Empire)
A sign posted at Juneau’s AT&T location said the estimated time for service to return is noon on Saturday for all affected areas, which includes Juneau, Sitka, Prince of Wales, Skagway and Haines.
A text message to AT&T customers Friday morning said, “As we work to restore service, we’re also recording the downtime so we can automatically credit the account,” a message repeated aloud to disappointed customers in Juneau.
At 5:09 p.m. Alaska Communications issued an update stating “Our teams will continue working throughout the night to restore service as quickly as possible. We’re actively working on backup connectivity to Juneau and Southeast which would restore services while we continue to work on cable repairs. We do not have a specific estimated time of restoral (ETR) at this time. We will share our next update by 10 a.m. Alaska time, Saturday, March 1.”
Update 3:30 p.m. Friday: Internet services were restored to city government offices via “leased lines,” but phones remain out of service, according to an email sent by the City and Borough of Juneau at about 3 p.m. Friday. A similar mix of operational and disconnected systems was reported at other government and business locations around town.
“Internet service to CBJ offices and facilities has been restored via leased lines, and CBJ services are generally operating normally,” CBJ announcement states. “CBJ staff and residents alike may experience delays or hiccups while using CBJ internet services — please be patient when visiting CBJ facilities or accessing CBJ services online.”
People should contact CBJ departments by email, via addresses listed at web pages, due to the lack of phone service, according to the announcement.
The website for the Alaska State Legislature was not functioning as of Friday afternoon and the MyAlaska portal for Alaskans to access state government services. The main State of Alaska website was online with updates posted on Friday, but sites to apply for Permanent Fund dividends and book Alaska Marine Highway trips were offline.
The National Weather Service Juneau stated on its Facebook page “parts of the weather.gov/ajk webpage may be out of date, such as the ‘top news’ section and weather story, and are looking into the issue. Regular forecast product issuances are still occurring.”
A notice at KTOO’s website states “KAUK (91.7), KXLL (100.7) and KRNN (102.7) are currently off the air in parts of the area due to the current outage.”
Among businesses in town, the Breeze In posted a message stating it was not taking online orders at its main Lemon Creek store, while Domino’s Pizza was still processing online delivery orders as usual.
The disruption to Alaska Communications systems due to subsea cable damage is affecting AT&T customers, although a portable FirstNet cell tower in the parking lot next to Centennial Hall was making calls from the downtown area possible.
Update 1 p.m. Friday: Damage to a subsea cable system is responsible for a phone and internet outage affecting much of Southeast Alaska, and it is unknown how long repairs will take, Alaska Communications stated in a message to customers at 12:30 p.m.
“We are dispatching a repair ship,” the message states. “We do not have an estimated time for restoral. We are also working to find alternate ways to restore connectivity to Juneau.”
Many government and businesses continued operating as usual Friday despite outages, including classes at the Juneau School District and floor sessions at the Alaska State Capitol.
Original story, 9:30 a.m. Friday: Widespread disruptions of telephone and internet services in Juneau and other parts of Southeast Alaska that began Thursday night are continuing Friday morning, with the Juneau Police Department and government office locations among those affected.
“There is an area wide issue impacting multiple wireless and wireline phone services,” the Juneau Police Department stated in a post on its Facebook page at 9:47 p.m. Thursday. “If your cell phone was impacted and you need to place a call, you may want to enable Wi-Fi calling. The JPD business line and all other JPD administrative phone lines are affected. Please call 907-321-5911 if you need non-emergency assistance during this period.”
Emergency 911 calls are still going through.
Alaska Communications, whose carriers include AT&T, posted a notice on its Facebook page at 8:20 a.m. Friday stating “our team worked through the night on the network issues impacting Southeast Alaska. We have technical teams dispatched to multiple locations to troubleshoot. This is our top priority and we’ll share an update as soon as we have more information.” The specific problem was not explained.
A chart shows service outages reported by Juneau customers to AT&T between Thursday night and Friday morning. (Downdetector.com website)
A notice sent to some customers by AT&T at 8:36 a.m. Friday morning stated “you may be experiencing a wireless interruption.” A status chart at the website downdetector.com notes numerous reports of service outages from customers beginning shortly before 9 p.m. Thursday.
Juneau City Manager Katie Koester, in a text message to the Empire at about 10 a.m., stated “phones are mostly out” for City and Borough of Juneau offices. “People can still email us — we are back up on the internet. We are hoping it will be fixed by noon.”
A notice posted at the University of Alaska’s website states “there is currently a full network outage in Southeast Alaska, originating with the service provider, ACS. Since our ELMO service is hosted there, it is also experiencing slowness.”
ACS is scheduled to provide emergency maintenance between 8:30 a.m. and noon, according to the university’s website.
Communications on Friday morning remained out at some government offices including those at the Alaska State Capitol. A notice posted at 7:35 a.m. Friday by the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities states “the internet interruption/outage effecting many areas of Southeast Alaska is being investigated by technical teams.”
“At this time we have not received an estimated timeframe for a fix,” the notice states. “Please continue to check back for updates. Most of our websites are still down. 511.alaska.gov is up, but road cameras seem to have gone down as of last night (2/27).”
An earlier DOT notice states “Due to the Juneau-wide internet interruption/outage, many State of Alaska websites are down, including DOT&PF, Alaska Marine Highway (Alaska State Ferry), Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, and Fairbanks International Airport.”
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306. Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz.garrett@juneauempire.com or (907) 723-9356.
