What happens when the Internet goes out? This Arizona town found out

Computers, cellphones and landlines in Arizona were knocked out of service for hours, ATMs stopped working, 911 systems were disrupted and businesses were unable to process credit card transactions — all because a vandal apparently sliced through a fiber-optic Internet cable buried under the desert.

The Internet outage did more than underscore just how dependent modern society has become on high technology. It raised questions about the vulnerability of the nation's Internet infrastructure. The severed CenturyLink-owned cable is near a riverbed in a rocky stretch of desert north of Phoenix that isn't easily accessible to vehicles. It carries signals for various cellphone, TV and Internet providers that serve northern Arizona. Workers in hardhats could be seen digging up and splicing the cables, which appeared to be bundled in a jacket a few inches in diameter and buried several feet under the rocky soil.