On Oct. 13, a crew working for Time Warner cut a TV cable making it impossible for avid South Carolina football viewers to watch the LSU-USC game.

The outage was a nuisance. However, Time Warner has also suffered a few major outages due to similar cable cuts that have seriously affected businesses on the island. Since the services offered by both companies are critical to the functioning of many businesses, I think it is about time that our local leaders get together and meet with these companies to discuss a plan whereby each company offers a backup plan for the other company's customers.

Such a plan is the only feasible way of insuring service since a satellite option would be too costly. Such a plan would insure continuity of services and could be made available at a relatively low price since it would only be used in cases of emergency. There should be no ongoing bandwidth demand pressures. Since the municipalities benefit from these relationships, maybe the governing bodies should return the favor to the cable users and fix the problem. I'm sure businesses would be willing to pay for a reasonable back-up plan.

Thomas E. Nugent

Hilton Head Island