• GigaBeam reported a fibre cut near Ashburn at 10:50am on 5 September, degrading service in Bland, Logan and Mingo counties
  • The network remained on backup capacity while Connect Air operated normally, with no restoration estimate in the latest 5 September notice

The fact

GigaBeam Networks reported a fibre cut near Ashburn, Virginia, on 5 September. The cut affected the company’s primary circuit and degraded fibre service in Bland, Logan and Mingo counties. GigaBeam said the incident began at 10:50am.

The company kept the network running on backup capacity while the primary circuit remained unavailable. Its Connect Fiber service was marked as degraded, while Connect Air, GigaBeam’s fixed-wireless service, was operating normally.

GigaBeam serves parts of southwestern Virginia and southern West Virginia with fibre and fixed-wireless broadband. In its latest update on 5 September, the company had not given an estimated restoration time or provided further details on what caused the cut.

The assessment

The backup circuit stopped the fibre cut from becoming a complete loss of service. Customers remained connected, although GigaBeam still classified fibre performance as degraded. In practical terms, the failover worked, but not well enough to make the failure invisible.

The company has not said how much capacity was available on the backup connection or how heavily it was loaded during the incident. It has also not disclosed whether the two circuits follow genuinely separate physical routes. Without that information, it is difficult to know whether the degraded performance came from the backup path itself or elsewhere in the network.

For BTW readers, the incident shows the difference between having a backup circuit and maintaining normal service when the primary route fails. How long GigaBeam stayed on backup, and whether it later explains the capacity and routing involved, will give a better indication of how resilient the network actually is.

What to watch

Watch when the primary circuit is restored, how long the network remains on backup and whether GigaBeam explains the cause of the cut. Any disclosure on performance during the incident, backup capacity or physical route diversity would help show how closely the backup path matched normal service.

Sources