from Stan Matthews
On its Monday morning, November 11 conference call, CenturyLink reported plans to restore voice mail service to customers. A company representative said that there appears to be enough service capacity to divert some of the lines now dedicated to voice calling to restore that service “within the hour.”
Other news was not as promising. Though the company has two specially equipped barges, dive crews and underwater robotic cameras deployed to the waters between Lopez and San Juan Islands, it has not yet located the break in the underwater fiber-optical cable that severed voice and much data service between San Juan County and the mainland nearly a week ago. Pressed for an estimate of the time it will take to restore the County to 100 percent service level, the company representatives said they don’t currently have enough information to offer a time frame.
While 911 emergency service, inter-island and long distance service have been restored for landline phones; cell phone service, especially between cell phones and landlines, remains spotty. Depending on location and vendor, 911 emergency calling from cell phones is still a problem that has not been resolved. Emergency responders continue to advise that landline phone should be the first 911 option, emailing 911@sanjuanco.com will also reach the dispatch center. Some cell phone calls will connect from some locations, but it’s not something that should be relied upon.
Meanwhile, DSL Internet service on San Juan Island, which had been restored to approximately 60% of its normal capacity, has occasionally been slowed to less than half that rate and periodically interrupted. The problem is that the tall crane on a repair barge brought in to deal with the broken cable frequently obstructs the radio signal of the OPALCO transmitter that has been pressed into service to transmit Internet data.
The next major step forward in the repair process will be the activation of a new radio data link between Friday Harbor and Lopez. The company says that link should increase the overall phone and data capacity to more than two-thirds of the pre-break level. That could be activated as early as Tuesday evening, November 12.
CenturyLink said that its crews have almost completed hooking up the new equipment on the Lopez Island end of the link. Workers are still dealing with some challenges in splicing together connections and finding a suitable place for the antenna in Friday Harbor.
The new link’s capacity will be used primarily to restore dedicated data lines of the sort used by financial institutions, government agencies, pharmacies and businesses that transfer large amounts of voice, secure data and Internet-related activity. That could begin happening Tuesday night or Wednesday, November 13.
The company again emphasized that its crews are working around the clock and working with OPALCO’s additional resources to restore service.
