Hello Hilltop Customers,
 

I'd like to address the outages that you have experienced in the past few weeks.  A few unfortunate incidents have caused extended outages on the fiber optic system upstream of Hilltop's Southern Colorado network.
 

There have been a total of four outages over the past 6 weeks.  The first two outages were caused by a wildfire near Colorado Springs.  The fiber optic cable was burned in two areas.  This occurred about 24 hours apart and happened in the evenings around 7pm.  These outages were restored amazingly fast considering the fire conditions and I give credit to the repair crews that worked through the night to get job done.

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The third outage was caused by an extended power outage in the Salida area.  Our backup batteries were depleted during this electric power outage.  I have directed my engineering team to increase battery systems to maintain our systems beyond 24 hours in the event of power outages.  These systems will be in place in the coming weeks.
 

The outage that started at 11am on June 6th was caused by severe damage to a fiber optic cable near Walsenburg.  I do not have details on the cause of the damage however it is believed to be due to construction.
 

I have also directed my engineering team to begin designing alternate fiber links that will provide backup capacity and system redundancy.  My goal is to eliminate the potential for fiber optic cable damage to cause long term outages in the future.
 

I appreciate you patience during this difficult and frustrating situation.  Please know that we are working hard to build a more reliable and resilient network to better serve you in the future.
 

Eric Ryplewski
CEO
Hilltop Broadband