Maintenance crews working in the basement of Altgeld Hall Wednesday morning made a blunder resulting in a temporary loss of communication to many buildings on the east side of campus.

Contractors accidentally cut a main fiber trunk around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, director of communications Cindy Phillips said.

The 400-par wire controlled phones and Internet connections to buildings on the east side of campus, including Lowden Hall, where NIU President John Peters’ office is located.

Other buildings affected were Faraday East and West, Montgomery Hall, Founders Memorial Library, Parking Services, the Music, Art and psychology buildings and the women’s and black studies buildings.

Jeremy Balogh, a sophomore electrical engineering major, attempted to work on his computer program Wednesday morning, but was surprised to find that neither the Internet nor the network F: drive worked on a computer in the basement of the Psychology Building.

“I was upset, everyone down there was,” Balogh said.

Luckily, the teaching assistant said he would be lenient with the due date of his program.

Thanks to some of the engineers on campus, the problem was fixed and by 1 p.m. Internet connections were restored, Phillips said.

The only problem is that connections are temporarily slower, because engineers had to route the connections to another cable, which increases overall communications traffic.

“It’s really close to finals,” Balogh said. “I hope everything is figured out before students really need to use those computers.”

The main fiber trunk should be repaired in three to four days, Phillips said.

Until that time, network engineering is asking for people to limit their use to university-related material.

Telecommunications in all buildings were restored by 6 p.m.

Engineers on campus have had training and been to conferences to learn how to deal with emergency situations like this one, Phillips said.

They responded well and their work should be documented to help in future crises, she added.