The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday, Aug. 5, edition that much of Atlantic Canada lost cellphone and other network services for more than four hours on Friday, after what BCE's Bell called "accidental damage" to its fibre-optic grid. A Canadian Press dispatch to The Globe reports that Bell said its "major service outage" hit Internet, TV, wireless and landline phones, with landline 911 service intermittent. Flights were delayed at multiple airports, many consumers could not use their debit and credit cards, and TD Canada Trust was among the banks closing some branches in the region. Bell said the outage began at 10:45 a.m. Atlantic Time, with service restored at 3 p.m "following rerouting and repair of network infrastructure." Bell spokesman Nathan Gibson says: "This was an extraordinary situation in which major fibre network links serving Atlantic Canada were cut by third-party construction work in two different locations. We are still investigating how the fibre cuts happened." Telus spokesman Richard Gilhooley says his company's services, which rely on Bell infrastructure, had also been restored. Rogers Communications said its cellular network was not affected.