MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) – Telephone service was disrupted for Fairpoint Communications customers in southern New Hampshire for about 90 minutes on Saturday.

Fairpoint spokeswoman Jill Healey Wurm said a problem with a switching point in Manchester affected long-distance calls into and out of the southern half of the state, roughly from Concord in the north, to Salem.

She said the outage ran from about 1:30 to 3 p.m.

Many callers in the affected area heard quick busy signals or a recorded message that circuits were busy. Callers trying to reach phones in that area had the same problem because their calls were being routed through the affected switching point.

Some emergency calls also were affected because the 911 center in Concord could not reach police or fire departments in the affected area by their primary telephone lines. In those cases, Emergency Management spokesman Jim VanDongen said E911 operators in Concord either got through by redialing the call, by radio or an alternate telephone line.