Prolonged, Widespread Internet Outage Causes Frenzy In Lawton, Oklahoma

UPDATE, 11:30 a.m. 1/9/2025: Sparklight issued an update regarding the Jan. 7 outage on its official Facebook page. Sparklight stated that repairs were completed and that services have resumed. Sparklight also indicated that if people were still having issues to reboot their modem. As of the time of this update, we have still have not received a response from Sparklight to our inquiry about what caused the outage.

Around 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 7, residents in Lawton, Oklahoma, collectively began experiencing issues with their internet. A majority of those who identified as not having internet that evening were Sparklight customers. The event ended up lasting till midnight for most, and on Wednesday, several local businesses were still dealing with issues caused by the outage.

When the internet went down Tuesday evening, residents in Lawton began asking questions on various local social media groups as to whether or not anyone else was experiencing issues with their Sparklight internet. Soon comments by the hundreds began coming through. Most of them stated that their Sparklight internet was also down, while others who had internet from different companies were not reporting any issues.

Sparklight recently bought out Fidelity Communications and are now the internet service provider for those who previously had accounts with Fidelity Communications. The company began the transition from Fidelity Communications in Lawton to Sparklight at the end of 2024.

Soon after the internet went down Tuesday, screenshots of the company's official outage map began circulating, indicating that Sparklight was experiencing outages across multiple service areas, including Oklahoma, Texas and Missouri.

Sparklight did not offer immediate explanation for widespread outage.

By 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sparklight posted an outage alert on its official Facebook page. In the post, the company indicated that areas surrounding Lawton, Oklahoma, were without internet, phone and video services. They stated that "technicians [were] working diligently to restore services as quickly as possible" and that they would "post again upon completion of repair and restoration of service."

Around midnight, locals in Lawton began posting updates to social media stating that their Sparklight internet was back up. But as of 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 8, Sparklight has yet to make an official announcement regarding restoration of service and what caused the prolonged and widespread outage.

We reached out to Sparklight for a statement and did not receive an answer by time of publishing.

Local businesses report issues on Wednesday following Sparklight outage.

The Sparklight outage not only caused a frenzy amongst residential customers, but it also created issues for local businesses that rely on internet. Restaurants and stores were unable to use their checkout systems, and local radio stations went off air for several hours.

Most of these businesses were able to be back up and running once the internet was restored but some local businesses were still experiencing issues on Wednesday.

Some Lawton residents were angered by the outage.

Multiple residents in Lawton took to social media to express their anger about the outage. On the post Sparklight issued regarding the outage, there were 87 comments as of 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 8.

Most of the comments expressed people's frustration with the outage and asked whether or not residents would receive a discount for the hours of disconnection. Others were impatient with a lack of updates on the situation, and some expressed trouble with getting through to the support call line or logging in to their online account portal.