An 18-wheeler pulled into an area it shouldn’t have Tuesday morning and caused a widespread service outage for customers who use MaxxSouth for their Internet and cable TV service in Lafayette County.

According to MaxxSouth Regional General Manager Rick Ferrall, the tractor-trailer “turned into a drive way it shouldn’t have and ripped down a fiber optic line” this morning.

The accident caused about a thousand feet of fiber to be replaced that was attached to six poles near the Highway 7 and Highway 9 split, south of Oxford. Ferrall said poles were not damaged, but “it ripped down fiber off of six poles.”

“We had to re-hang the steel cable we attach to and re-splice it,” Ferrall said. “We thought we had it repaired at first in the main break, but as soon as we made the connection we saw we had an additional six breaks.”

Ferrall said that area of Highway 7 and Highway 9 is where the main fiber cable feeds into Oxford.

“The bottom line is that he shouldn’t have pulled into that area,” Ferrall said.

In a post on their Facebook page soon after the outage occurred just before 10 a.m., the company said they are dealing with “technical issues throughout the state. Our technicians and engineers are working to get the issue resolved as quickly as possible.”

“We are currently experiencing a service outage affecting all of MaxxSouth’s service areas. We are currently working to restore the services as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”

The outage affected service for more than three hours.

Ferrall said there are could possibly be some pockets here and there of customers who do not have service, but the majority of MaxxSouth customers should be back online.