WATERLOO - A network outage caused area customers of U.S. Cellular to lose phone service for several hours Monday.

Jodi Valenta, Northeast Iowa sales manager for U.S. Cellular, said a power failure at the company's switching center in Cedar Rapids caused the network outage and the company was still investigating the cause of the power failure. She was not sure how many customers were affected.

Valenta said because most U.S. Cellular customers were in their home area, their phones would not have gone to roaming, or worked off another company's network. She said many customers came by her store asking about the problem.

"For the most part, they were very accommodating and understanding," she said.

The outage occurred early Monday, with the network being restored by 2:20 p.m.

U.S. Cellular is based in Chicago and is the nation's sixth largest wireless service carrier, with more than 5.2 million customers in 25 states.

Contact RC Balaban at (319) 291-1418 or rc.balaban@wcfcourier.com.