TBay Tel Service to virtually all cell customers in a huge area of Northwestern Ontario has been lost just as the August long weekend begins. The outage covers all communities from Ignace west, and may be due to a broken fibre optic cable owned and maintained by a third party. Customers in Dryden, Ignace, Sioux Lookout, Red Lake, Fort Frances and the district have been left with no service, meaning no calls, no texts and no Facebook until the problem is resolved. In the words of one tired TBay Tel employee – ‘hopefully sooner, rather than later.’