— On Feb. 20, Jan Kampbell, Public Relations & Market Development Manager, Western Washington, and Joe Cohen, Orcas Island Financial Planner, had an email and telephone interchange regarding the Nov. 5-15, 2013 CenturyLink outage, prompted by the Feb. 17 editorial in Orcas Issues. With their permission, copied below is that interchange, with Kampbell’s responses in italics —
Cohen: Here is what I heard and learned from you:
1. While the initial response to the outage (and the call centers in general) were less than optimal, you did eventually get the calls directed to ‘one center’ where the information provided provided was consistent.
Kampbell: That is correct.
2. You have attempted to communicate (presumably multiple times) the decisions arrived at by CenturyLink (as to the refunds) – the message (apparently) has not been widely understood (or at least marginally so).
Yes, we sent out several media alerts in addition to a direct mailer to our customers in San Juan County.
3. What you told me was (simply) as follows: CenturyLink ultimately arrived at a decision to refund fifteen days (15) of internet services fees and phone service fees – roughly 50%.
Correct, the decision was made to issue 15 days of credit for both internet and phone service.
4. That refund ‘should be appearing’ on February monthly bills that customers have (or will have) received.
That is correct. It is not ‘all in one place’ on the bill, but rather ‘spread out’ over the various component parts of the bill.
Yes. Very simply – it is about a 50% refund for most customers. Yes, the credits are for 15 days. The credits are reflected on the February bills.
The actual outage was for about five (5) days…so the 15 day refund represents a ‘good faith effort’ on the part of CenturyLink to ‘make good’ with their customers in a most difficult situation. The actual number of days customers were without service varies by island. On Nov. 5, the day of the outage, each island could only call intra-island, San Juan Island also experienced no internet, and 911 calls on all islands had to be rerouted. On Nov. 7, off-island dialing was restored, and on Nov. 8 internet services began to be restored on San Juan Island. (End of Cohen-Kampbell interchange)
(Editor’s note: As expressed by CenturyLink Operations Manager Brian Stading on Nov. 14, 2013, service wasn’t yet fully restored by that date. The actual outage for CenturyLink customers was from Nov. 5 to 15. On Nov. 14, CenturyLink representative Meg Andrews issued a “media alert” stating “CenturyLink services may experience intermittent disruptions throughout the day in voice, 911, and data services as we continue with the restoration effort. We are working to restore service as soon as possible.”
(It should also be noted that on Nov. 5 and succeeding days, Orcas and Lopez Islands CenturyLink customers also experienced no internet.)
Isn’t the “spin” Kampbell put on the “good faith effort” compared to the facts in the Editor’s Comments called “lying” by those of us born in an earlier time?
There was not inter-island service on the 5th. Ask Mandy Nigretto for one. She tried to call telling me the time of a hair appointment the next day. I had it down wrong and arrived an hour late. Her business lost most of the day because of the outage.