Many CenturyLink customers in Santa Fe and other parts of New Mexico were without Internet service for several hours Monday while Sprint and Virgin Mobile customers across the state were hit by service disruptions through the weekend due to a cut fiber optics cable.

The outage was a brief but stark reminder of how dependent people have become on cellphones and the Internet.

Jonathan Gallegos, information systems administrator for the Santa Fe District Attorney's Office, said his phone was ringing off the hook by 7:45 a.m. with staffers calling him about the problem. "Our dedicated server with our database of cases lives in Albuquerque," Gallegos said. "We couldn't access it."

The frustration was brief, with Internet access available again by 9 a.m., he said. Some staff were able to continue researching or pulling documents using their smartphones. But lawyers with court hearings that morning and staff trying to get documents printed had a brief period of panic. He said if the problem hadn't been resolved so quickly, lawyers would have had to find a wireless spot to download information onto their laptops.

Reports of Internet loss began as early as midnight in parts of Santa Fe. CenturyLink reported electrical equipment failure at the Santa Fe office that affected service at 12:45 a.m. Monday, according to Alicia Ledezma, CenturyLink's market development manager for Northern New Mexico. By 9 a.m., the system was rebooted, and by 10 a.m. most customers were able to access the Internet again.

Internet was inaccessible to CenturyLink customers in most of downtown Santa Fe and Tierra Contenta, but Santa Fe Community College wasn't affected, according to staff.

Carla Lopez, communications director for the city of Santa Fe, said she didn't notice the lost Internet connection until the city's IT staff alerted her. "I was sending out emails and I didn't get an error notice," she said.

Sprint and Virgin Mobile customers in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Farmington and Los Alamos also were frustrated by interrupted service Saturday evening through Sunday afternoon. The culprit was a cut interstate fiber optics cable that affected CenturyLink, according to Nichole Cappitelli, regional Sprint communications representative. She said Sprint leases cable space from the cable line in some areas to link service.

Ledezma confirmed an interstate fiber optics line was cut in Texas, affecting New Mexico. "It impacted the entire state, literally," she said.

Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.