After a series of storms, phone service is being restored to residents of the Sunshine Coast. Telus hopes to have all the repairs completed by this weekend.
Telus spokesperson Shawn Hall said that across the Sunshine Coast and Vancouver Island there has been four to five times the normal volume of customer service issues. The company has added 60 technicians to the two service areas. Seven have been sent to the Sunshine Coast and will remain until all repairs are made.
Most problems are with single lines in isolated areas of Gibsons, Sechelt and Halfmoon Bay. However, in Egmont there have been two network outages in three weeks. Network outages involve a large number of customers at once. The first outage occurred when BC Hydro lines crossed over Telus lines in Egmont. The second occurred around noon on Friday, Jan. 5. Service was restored in stages from noon on Saturday, Jan. 6, to noon on Monday, Jan. 8, according to Hall.
Old or east Egmont has been hardest hit.
Resident Bruce McLellan reported that he had been without phone service for 28 days. Two poles had to be replaced on that side of the inlet. The telephone and hydro companies share the poles. Whenever the BC Hydro power lines land on the telephone lines, BC Hydro has to come in first to fix the power lines. Only then can Telus workers repair the phone lines.
"The workers also checked the submarine cable that crosses Sechelt Inlet at Egmont. All this extraordinary work and the unique situation that is Egmont contributes to extra time to make repairs," said Hall. "Egmont is a difficult area to service. Workers have to travel by boat or in other areas that are difficult to access."
When asked if customers would receive a discount for the days they had no service, Hall responded, "Yes, if they contact customer service at 310-2255, they would receive a refund if they reported an outage."
When Coast Reporter explained to Hall that some residents of Egmont did not report their particular service out because the entire town was out, Hall said that this extended outage was a "unique situation" and that he would take this to the Loyalty and retention group in customer service for consideration. Perhaps Telus may choose to give a blanket credit to all Egmont customers in the future, he added.
Hall said he felt the company had done pretty well considering they had contended with 13 storms so far this winter.
