Qwest customers had reason to be upset this past weekend when the company’s fiber optic lines experienced an outage which caused the loss of cell phone service, internet connection and use of machines such as ATMs and credit card processors. The Daily Times reported that this is not the first time that Qwest has experienced such problems in the area and in fact that the company’s failure to invest money into improvements has resulted in lawsuits by the New Mexico state government. The outage affected much of the Farmington, New Mexico area, disrupting business and creating concern that Qwest customers may not be able to access services in the case of an emergency due to the lack of communication caused by the outage.