LAS CRUCES - Preliminary findings of a New Mexico Public Regulation Commission investigation into a massive communications outage that stopped telephone and Internet service Tuesday to most of southern New Mexico show that a request to relocate a fiber-optic cable near San Antonio, N.M., was not submitted before digging began by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Cuts to two other fiber-optic lines by still-unidentified contractors also occurred in the state on Tuesday.

Commissioner Sandy Jones, whose PRC district includes Las Cruces, said Thursday that the investigation will continue. He also reiterated that fines could imposed.

Representatives of Qwest Communications, the company that owns the lines, met with the commission at its regularly scheduled meeting Thursday in Santa Fe to provide details and answer questions. It has been estimated that 95,000 Qwest customers were without telephone and Internet service for anywhere from three to five hours Tuesday. The outage also seriously affected operations at 36 emergency dispatch or 911 centers.

"This is just the preliminary information we've received," Jones said. "(PRC) staff will come back with recommendations. Anytime there's been damages, as there has been in this case, there's always the potential for fines being levied."

Wednesday, Jones said the fines could be in the "tens of thousands of dollars."

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was drilling for soil samples at a site about 18 miles south of Socorro when

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a Qwest fiber-optics cable was cut, about 10 a.m. Tuesday. Any excavation that is done in New Mexico requires that a permit be obtained through the PRC. Companies, like Qwest, who have utility lines on properties are then required to go to that location and identify where their lines are.

A redundant fiber-optic cable near Tijeras, N.M., which was used to re-route communications services after the line near Socorro was cut, was severed shortly before 4 p.m. Tuesday. Jones said a permit request to relocate that line was submitted to the PRC by a private construction company who was installing a water line.

When the fiber-optic cable near Tijeras was cut, that abruptly stopped all land-line telephone and Internet services throughout most of southern New Mexico. The redundant line served as a backup for communication services after the fiber-optic cable near Socorro was cut.

"What a lot of people don't realize is that those fiber-optic cables also serve as a backbone for some wireless communications, some cell phone companies," Jones said. "Some cell phone providers were more seriously impacted than others. That's why some cell service went out, too."

Wednesday, Jones said a third fiber-optics cable, near Clovis, was also cut on Tuesday. However, there were no immediate indications that incident contributed to the widespread outage experienced throughout southern New Mexico.

"This was substantial," said Jones, of the extent of the outage.