County official: ‘We have too many outages’

Fourth blackout in Los Alamos since 2022 spurs community meeting: Officials say redundant fiber line rollout is closer than expected

Los Alamos lost all communications for 17 hours on Tuesday, November 11, when construction crews north of Santa Fe cut the county’s sole fiber connection. But at a community meeting Wednesday night, hosted by local internet provider Allan Saenz, attendees learned that the long-awaited solution—a redundant fiber line—could be operational within months, not years.

What happened on Tuesday

I reached out to Los Alamos County’s public information officer, Julie Williams-Hill, to find out what happened on Tuesday. She said that service went down at 9:30 a.m. and wasn’t restored until 2:15 a.m. the following day. The cut occurred during construction north of Santa Fe, though she said they don’t know which project or contractor was responsible because the fiber line runs outside their jurisdiction. A map she provided showed the cut happened near the 599 intersection with West Alameda St.

Map courtesy of Los Alamos County

Emergency 911 calls were affected, but the county was able to route them through Santa Fe dispatch, which coordinated directly with Los Alamos police and fire departments, she said. County officials made a strategic decision not to send CodeRED alerts because the system requires cellular service to deliver notifications.

Saenz, who owns Los Alamos Network (LAnet), activated Starlink backup systems and used traffic shaping to prioritize essential services. But as he explained at the meeting he hosted on Wednesday, Starlink is not a silver bullet: “Even if we got 10, 20, 100 Starlinks, will not replace the capacity of our fiber backbone,” he said. “So that’s not an option.”

He urged residents to understand the limits. “We have to understand is that this is a backup,” he said. “So it is not like scrolling on Facebook or watching videos or downloading an update, right? So to know that this is more like [something to be used in] an emergency.” In other words, if there is another outage, be sparing with any internet you are able to access.

The middle mile arrives sooner than expected

The San Ildefonso Pueblo fiber line project (also known as the “middle mile” in the overall project) is 75-80% complete and expected to become operational in the first quarter of 2026, according to both Jerry Smith (broadband manager for Los Alamos County) and Williams-Hill.

Broadband is the critical piece of infrastructure that will prevent future cuts to the Lumen line from taking down the entire county. Once operational, providers like LAnet that connect to the redundant path will maintain service even during Lumen outages. (See the county’s extensive information page on broadband here.)

“The issue we’re currently having is crossing the Rio Grande,” said Jerrold Baca, general manager of REDI Net, the middle-mile provider, speaking at Wednesday’s meeting. “They’re working on easements, right of ways, all of the required requirements to cross the Rio Grande. Once we get that, we have a route off, and then we will work with LAnet and the county to try to improve resiliency. That way, if something goes out, LAnet and the county will have a resilient route.”

Baca clarified several times that the fiber line belongs to San Ildefonso Pueblo, not the county. REDI Net will work with LAnet to utilize the new connection, but other providers—Verizon, Comcast, AT&T—will need to negotiate their own access, he said.

That means your cell service might still go down during future outages unless your provider connects to the redundant line. “We can’t make Verizon get a second link,” he said. “We can’t make Comcast get a second link. We can’t make Lumen get the second link. We can only say hey, we helped build it. Now let’s hope these other guys take advantage of it.”

Why outages keep happening

This was the fourth major communications blackout since December 2022. The answer to why it keeps recurring will be familiar to Los Alamos residents who have heard these reasons many times before: geography and jurisdiction.

“Los Alamos County is landlocked by tribes and forests and government lands,” Baca explained. “So getting out is very difficult.”

The county is surrounded by Los Alamos National Laboratory property, Department of Energy land along the Truck Route and Pajarito Road, Santa Fe County, San Ildefonso Pueblo, Bandelier National Monument, and state Department of Transportation right-of-ways. The Lumen fiber line runs through multiple jurisdictions, and the county has no authority over private telecommunications infrastructure outside its boundaries.

County officials, who must rely on what Lumen chooses to share with them, couldn’t answer basic questions about Tuesday’s outage: which contractor cut the line, whether proper line locates were performed, or why documentation of underground infrastructure remains inadequate.

Williams-Hill forwarded my questions to Lumen officials, who sent back this response:

The cost of under-investment

Andy Phelps, who runs Space Nuclear Power Corp (also known as “Space Nukes”), which designs nuclear reactors for outer space, drew parallels to other infrastructure challenges he has observed since moving to Los Alamos in 2006.

“We would never put electrical feeds to our county with a single feed. We’d never do a single water supply. We always have alternatives,” Phelps said at Wednesday’s meeting. “Our county seems to be able to put lots of money into golf courses and wanting to have plastic grass down on the baseball diamonds and all sorts of swimming pools … I’ve built and designed whole communities all over the world, you would never do that without [redundancies].”

He said he lost “many thousands of dollars” in Tuesday’s outage and added that “whole businesses shut down and locked their doors. My wife was in one that did that. They couldn’t take any money. I mean, that’s how dependent we are on this.”

Multiple residents echoed similar concerns. One business owner said she missed an eight-hour, $400 webinar she’ll have to retake. Saenz said that LAnet has been losing customers to Starlink because of recurring outages.

“We are under-investing in our utilities in this county,” Phelps said. “Water’s still got some challenges. Sewer is a big challenge, and internet, as we were talking here tonight, we all know we got a bigger challenge.”

Community broadband delayed but advancing

The county’s separate fiber-to-the-home project (the “last mile,” as opposed to the “middle mile”) won’t break ground until summer 2026, assuming approval of a bond vote scheduled for Tuesday, November 18. Smith called the bond vote “the last big milestone” before construction can proceed.

The county briefly considered advancing the timeline but concluded that “introduced additional risk,” according to Williams-Hill. Full buildout to more than 10,000 locations is expected between 2029 and 2030.

The network will be open access, meaning four to six internet service providers will compete for customers over county-owned infrastructure. LAnet is likely to be one of those providers. Bonfire, the contractor, will design, build, and operate the network.

Smith said that if and when the bond vote passes, he’ll begin regular public education sessions. A dashboard will enable residents to enter their addresses and view when fiber construction reaches their neighborhood.

“The council has made this a priority,” said Smith. “I work on this full time. As I said, it’s going slower than I want, but it is moving forward. Things are progressing; it’s just we have too many outages. I’m trying to get there before the next outage happens.”

What to expect

REDI Net’s Baca urged residents to contact county councilors and state representatives about accelerating permitting processes. “The state is aware of this all the way up to the State Governor’s office,” he said. “We need to ease the ability to get permits and right-of-way permits at the state level.”

The Department of Transportation has committed to prioritizing broadband and fiber projects rather than processing them in a queue order, Baca said.

In the meantime, county officials recommend:

• Signing up for CodeRED with all contact methods (phone, text, email), even though it may not work during outages

• Keeping a battery-powered AM radio to monitor 1610 AM for emergency broadcasts

• Considering backup connectivity options (Starlink costs approximately $120/month; Boost Mobile operates on AT&T’s network for about $25/month)

• Using the county Wi-Fi for emergency connection: it remains available at the Municipal Building, Mesa Public Library, White Rock Fire Station 3, Ashley Pond Park, and Fuller Lodge—though signals may be overloaded during outages

The redundant fiber line arriving in early 2026 won’t solve every problem. Cell towers and major internet providers will need to connect to it. Cuts could still happen on the new line, though having two separate physical paths dramatically reduces the risk of total communications failure.

But for the first time since these recurring blackouts began, the solution isn’t years away. Keep that AM radio handy through the spring.