Imbris is back on line

COEUR d'ALENE - Imbris is back on line. The Internet provider suffered a "major circuit outage" Thursday, said owner Jim Fowler, who lives in Eatonville, Wash. "We did have the perfect storm, unfortunately that blew up in our face yesterday," he said Friday.

COEUR d'ALENE - Imbris is back on line.

The Internet provider suffered a "major circuit outage" Thursday, said owner Jim Fowler, who lives in Eatonville, Wash.

"We did have the perfect storm, unfortunately that blew up in our face yesterday," he said Friday.

Fowler said he worked all night and the next morning to bring the business back on line about 9:30 a.m. Friday and provide service again to its customers, about 600 in the Coeur d'Alene area.

He said he spent Friday returning calls to customers letting them know everything is back on line.

Fowler, who bought the 10-year-old business in November and is the only employee, said such was the extent of the problem that he was not able to get a notice to customers and the number of phone calls seeking information overwhelmed the system.

Between customers losing Internet service, the Web site going down and the voice mailboxes full, it created a bad situation.

"Everybody called in all at once," he said. "That left the image no one is answering the phone. We are definitely not out of business and not planning on going out of business."

He said the Coeur d'Alene office at 610 Hubbard is closed and no longer manned by an employee, but still has furniture and some equipment. He hopes to be able to reopen the office in the future.

Fowler said since he bought the business, he has been working to make upgrades, add new services, develop partnerships with local businesses and "stabilize things and bring more to the local economy."

"I will admit it has been a little bit of a bumpy road," he said.