PORT ANGELES — An equipment failure at Capacity Provisioning Inc. knocked out Internet service for 20 to 30 customers in the Port Angeles area, including the Peninsula Daily News, for more than four hours Monday.

“It’s just equipment issues we’re having here,” CPI Vice President Craig Johnson said from the Port Angeles business on Eighth Street.

Johnson said the outage was not caused by a problem with the fiber optic cable network.

County and city employees said the Internet was working fine at the Clallam County Courthouse and Port Angeles City Hall.

“Most are private customers, business customers,” Johnson said.

The outage started at 10:55 a.m. and lasted until about 3:15 p.m.

During the outage, at least four CPI workers tried to isolate a faulty interface.

“It seems to be like a moving target,” Johnson said. “It’s a tricky one.”

CPI workers “changed a few things around” on the interface to temporarily fix the outage, Johnson said.

He said CPI would replace the bad equipment after business hours Monday.

The city of Port Angeles pays CPI $5,045 per month for fiber-optic connections at 35 facilities on the network.

The network provides high-speed Internet access and is used for videoconferencing, utility and sewage overflow monitoring, surveillance and radio communications.

The City Council in April approved a $30,458 change order with CPI to add more connections to 13 city buildings. The additional connections were meant to ensure the connections would not be lost.

The city has contracted with CPI since 2002.

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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.