The large ISP, Cogent Communications Group Inc. (Amex: COI), whose network makes up a significant portion of the Internet’s backbone, today experienced two separate fiber cuts in two regions of the United States.

The ISP’s Website listed its network status as “critical” for much of Thursday, and customers traversing the Cogent network experienced some latency issues and packet loss. Some sites on the network, including Cogent's, were reportedly unreachable earlier in the day. (See Level 3, Cogent Kiss & Peer Up.)

The first of the fiber cuts occurred at 8:25 a.m. EST in New Orleans on a line connecting Houston and Tampa. The second occurred at 10:44 a.m. in Washington on a line connecting Philadelphia and D.C.

According to Cogent, the fiber line between Houston and Tampa had been restored as of 4 p.m. EST, while a splicing crew worked to repair the break between Philadelphia and Washington. Cogent said it would have that break restored by 6 p.m. (See Cogent: King of Ports .)

According to the Keynote Systems Inc. Internet Health Report Website, only about two thirds of Cogent’s network was available in the hours after the cuts occurred. Traffic originating and terminating within Cogent’s network was delayed by 105 milliseconds on average, according to Keynote. (See Internet Peering on Thin Ice? )

“Cogent did experience dual cuts earlier today in New Orleans and Washington DC -- a unique event for us,” says Cogent spokesperson Jeff Henriksen in an email to Light Reading. “They were caused by construction, which happens all the time, but this was unique because two of them happened at once...

“Only a small portion of Cogent's customers were impacted by this event as most of our customer base uses redundant providers. The cut in New Orleans should be repaired shortly.”

— Mark Sullivan, Reporter, Light Reading