A disruption in certain telecommunications services Thursday caused many Lampasans to revert back to older technologies for a few hours.

During work to widen U.S. Highway 183A, an AT&T fiber was cut by a third party, AT&T spokeswoman Meredith Adams said.

The cut resulted in service problems for some wireless and land line customers in the Lampasas, Adamsville and Liberty Hill areas. AT&T technicians restored service throughout the affected areas by Thursday evening, Ms. Adams said.

“Of course, we apologize for any inconvenience to our customers, but we’re glad service has been restored,” the spokeswoman said.

Homes and businesses throughout Lampasas were without Internet service for several hours beginning about 11 a.m. Internet and phone service was restored to the downtown square about 2 p.m.

During the outage, many cell phone users did not have reception inside the city. In addition, credit and debit card machines stopped working at multiple stores in Lampasas, causing many establishments to accept only cash or checks.

Dr. S. Chuck McCarter, chief operations officer for the Lampasas County Higher Education Center, was one of many in Lampasas hampered by the temporary disruption in cell phone service.

“I can’t get any calls in or out,” McCarter said Thursday afternoon as he prepared for a meeting of LCHEC Foundation members, and several college and university officials.

Until normal service resumed, 9-1-1 calls from within the city of Lampasas were directed through the Lampasas County Sheriff’s Office, Assistant Police Chief Sammy Baily said. Calls from elsewhere in the county were relayed to the sheriff’s office by radio from Copperas Cove.

Re-routing of calls followed normal procedures, which meant emergency response time was not affected, said Lisa Dillon, 9-1-1 regional manager for the Central Texas Council of Governments.