why did my county have a total loss of all phone and internet yesterday?

local calls worked but no .internet .cellphones or land line long distance. All cell phones regardless of service for at least 40 square miles were out for hours. there was no weather of any kind and no traffic accidents. The way i found out how large the outage was a good old fashion CB radio.(when a redneck looses his beep beep phone they go back to CB) nothing on all local news broadcasts as i DVR'd all of them... Government Conspiracy???