Around 500 iProvo customers in northeast Provo lost their phone, data and video services on Thursday when an accident along 2780 N. Timpview Drive resulted in three major fiber-optic cables on the iProvo network being severed.

The accident occurred at around 10:30 a.m. Thursday morning, and repairs aren't likely to be fully completed until Sunday, according to Cheryl Snapp Conner, spokeswoman for Broadweave Networks, iProvo's new owner.

"The lines may have been hanging lower into the street because of the heat of the day. When the driver passed the lines, they became caught on the top of the truck and were torn down," according to a firefighter with the Provo Fire Department.

The road was closed for about one hour Thursday morning while firefighters and Provo City cleaned up the area, he said. No injuries were reported.

The 500 affected customers were those in closest proximity to the accident site, whose homes are being serviced directly from trunk cables that comprise the three severed lines, Broadweave said in a statement issued Thursday afternoon.

"There could have been as many as 1,200 customers affected if the network wasn't built on a ring architecture, which contains the outage to an immediate area of the occurrence," Snapp Conner said.

The accident completely severed three major fiber cables, two of which contained 288 fiber strands each, and a third cable with 96 strands. Each strand carried various signals for video, phone and data, she said.

Broadweave, in Thursday's statement, said that the ring architecture of its cable network helps to limit an outage of this nature to the fewest customers possible. If the ring should become severed, the signal is automatically re-routed to travel through the alternate side of the loop for all customers serviced within that length of cable, the company said.

Company field service representatives said that because the cables were entirely severed, replacement fibers and splicing will need to be done for each of the affected strands to bring services back online. They said field service engineers will be working around the clock on repairs.

None of Veracity's customers on iProvo were affected, according to Christina Jackson, Veracity's human resources manager. None of the iProvo customers serviced by Mstar.Net are affected, according to Mstar officials.

Broadweave customers who are affected by this outage can watch for updates on the Broadweave Web site or contact the company at 801-878-3200.