The DeKalb area fell into a long-distance black hole Thursday when an AT&T phone wire was severed somewhere in the Illinois vicinity, a spokesperson for GTE Illinois said.

“The DeKalb office said it was a cut in a fiber-optic cable somewhere in Illinois Bell territory,” said Teri Reid, assistant for GTE Public Affairs.

Reports of long distance trouble started to come in to NIU’s office of telecommunications around 2:40 p.m., sources said.

However, GTE DeKalb was not aware of the problem until 3:30 p.m., Reid said.

“The problem is not at the university or in the DeKalb area,” said John Tuecke, associate vice president of NIU systems. “We have very little information, but we do know that much.”

Tueke said that the first report was that a fiber-optic cable, the major long distance system, was cut. That statement was later substantiated by Illinois Bell, according to GTE.

“The lines are busy so there’s clearly a problem,” Tuecke said.

NIU’s phone system operates on a joint AT&T-MCI system, Tuecke

said.

Tuecke said a cut in the AT&T system would potentially overload other phone systems such as Sprint and MCI, because the AT&T calls would be automatically re-routed to other lines.

“A cut in the phone lines is like having construction on the highway. The system will still work, but you will essentially have a traffic jam,” Reid said.

Reid said that repair time would depend on how bad the cut is, and how long it will take Illinois Bell to find the wire.

“My bet is that Bell has already started their work,” Reid said.