Lawrence attorney David Brown feels as if his lifeline has been cut off.

“It’s a very disconcerting feeling,” Brown said. “It’s not unlike those silly TV commercials that say, ‘you’re living in the dead zone,’ and that’s exactly what we kept making jokes about all night.”

Brown and his wife, both AT&T wireless customers, have been without cell service at their home in West Lawrence for the past two days. Their phones, however, both seem to work once they’re east of Sixth Street and Kasold Drive.

“You realize how connected you are to a piece of electronics that didn’t exist 10 years ago,” Brown said.

Lawrence residents were left feeling disconnected Tuesday, after an outage affected multiple cell phone carriers, including AT&T and Verizon Wireless customers.

A spokeswoman for Verizon said at one point the outage impacted 13 cell sites around the Lawrence area.

“We share wires with telecommunication providers,” said Brenda Hill, public relations manager for Verizon Wireless. “There was a problem in a cable that we share with other telecom companies.”

Hill classified the outage as a fairly minor problem, saying it lasted a couple of hours and all service was restored by 8:10 a.m. Tuesday.

AT&T released a statement saying the company was experiencing issues with a cell site in Lawrence that would impact some customers’ wireless service in the area.

AT&T spokeswoman Marisa Giller said a network team was working to resolve the issue.

“We have re-engineered the site so customers can continue to place calls and access data service,” Giller said in a statement sent by e-mail to the Journal-World. “Until the issue is completely resolved, some customers may experience slower data speeds.”

Brown said he was given no timeline for when the problem might be corrected. He said in the past, he’s thought about canceling his land line. Tuesday, he was glad he still had it.

“It is a lifeline in a very strange way,” Brown said. “If this were the only thing I was using, I’d be in trouble.”