• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Phone, Cable Service Slowly Comes Back to Life After Hurricane Damage

Posted on: Tuesday, 7 September 2004, 06:00 CDT

Sep. 8--More than half a million BellSouth customers in Florida were still without phone service Tuesday, with cell phones and television cable outages also problematic.

BellSouth Corp. estimated that 601,000 phone lines were not operating, about 10 percent of its Florida customers. About half of the customers without service were in hardest-hit Palm Beach, Indian River, Martin and St. Lucie counties.

As of Tuesday, about 170,000 customers in the state had regained service since Hurricane Frances hit, BellSouth said. The company has brought in more than 400 additional workers from other states to help with repairs.

Wireless phone companies would not provide details on how many customers were without service. Most would only point to how much of their network was operating throughout the entire state. The companies said they generally do not provide that kind of information because of competitive reasons.

Nextel Communications Inc., however, said that the company had so far managed to restore 50 percent of its service in its most affected areas of Palm Beach, Indian River, Martin and St. Lucie counties. About 80 percent its statewide network was operating, it said.

One of the biggest challenges had been that the company couldn't get its people into the worst areas until Monday to start repairs , spokeswoman Michele Pinnau said. Cell phone systems depend on some land lines to work, Pinnau said, noting that the situation was compounded in some areas because land phone service had not yet been restored.

Customers who have service may find that numbers take longer to connect. Wait for the automatic redial and don't just hang up if the number doesn't immediately go through, she said.

Cingular and AT&T Wireless also said that about 80 percent of its network was operating throughout the state. Sprint could not say how much of its network was affected, but like all the other cell phone companies said that service should improve once electrical power was back.

Television cable company Adelphia Communications Corp. said that 600,000 of its 700,000 customers in Florida were without service -- and the problem was further complicated because one of Adelphia's biggest call centers, in West Palm Beach, was also not operating because of lack of electricity.

Customer outage reports were being rerouted to other Adelphia service centers, but because of the volume of calls customers weren't always able to reach someone.

Spokeswoman Erica Stull said Adelphia customers would receive a credit for time without cable and asked customers to call its 888-683-1000 number only if they had electricity but no cable service.

Comcast Communications, the largest provider in South Florida, said it was still trying to determine how many of its customer were without service. Customers should call 800-266-2278 to report individual outages.

-----

To see more of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel -- including its homes, jobs, cars and other classified listings -- or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sun-sentinel.com.

(c) 2004, South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

BLS, NXTL, ADELQ, AWE, DCM, 9437, SBC,

More News in this Category