Internet and phone service was out across broad stretches of Bandera County on Thursday, Jan. 2, and Friday, Jan. 3, when a repair crew working on Highway 16 cut an AT&T transmission cable Thursday morning, knocking out service to AT&T customers and those of smaller carriers who use AT&T’s infrastructure to power its systems, officials said. That not only handicapped communications across the county, including emergency communications most of the day Thursday, it prevented many businesses from taking payments by credit cards since that system also was left inoperable. “Any business that depended on AT&T commercial services were hurt that day,” said ...