CAPE CORAL, Fla. — It’s been nearly two weeks since Hurricane Ian made landfall, and thousands of people are still without internet service, which is a necessity for some.
CenturyLink said 19,000 customers in Southwest Florida are offline. Cape Coral Resident Jey Leis is one of those people.
“I can’t work because I need that internet service,” Leis said.
Leis works from home, and so do many people in Southwest Florida. He has had to take vacation time because he can’t log into work.
“I currently work for a defense contractor, so I need very high-security standards to be able to access those computer systems,” Leis said.
Public hot spots are not an option for him because he said it’s slow and not safe.
Leis has spent hours trying to get an idea of when CenturyLink will restore his service, but he says he has gotten nowhere.
“We need some kind of eta, and I need to know when I am going to have the service back. Is that a week? a month? A year? I don’t know,” Leis said.
CenturyLink said they are working to have services restored in certain areas by the end of the week but were not specific.
Businesses like T-RX Pharmacy in Cape Coral are also impacted by having no internet.
Dr. Dominic Cordisco with T-RX Pharmacy said Comcast is their provider.
“We are just crippled right now. If we don’t have our computers, we can’t operate,” Cordisco said.
Cordisco says they need internet in order to fill prescriptions, make insurance claims and take phone calls.
“Our number one priority is our patients,” Cordisco said.
Right now, the Pharmacy is operating on a T-Mobile Modem to be able to provide their patients with medicine.
“It’s right now enough to run bare minimum tasks on our pharmacy software. It’s better than nothing,” Cordisco said.
Comcast released a list of the restoration progress by location:
Our response team of more than 1,700 technicians, network maintenance and engineering specialists continue to make steady progress repairing the damages to our equipment and infrastructure from Hurricane Ian and restoring connectivity to impacted customers as quickly as possible.
For our customers in our restoration areas, we hear you and understand your frustration. No matter the circumstances, our crews will continue to work until we have restored services for every impacted customer.
Currently, we have 13 service areas that are predominantly restored, which means that our network in these locations is operational, and approximately 90 percent of customers in these areas now have services restored. It is important to note that in these areas, our teams are still working on small pocket outages that might impact an individual home or a neighborhood street.
Restoration timelines are based on the assessments of damage to our network and the condition of our local plant in the impacted areas where we are currently working to make repairs.
Restoration Progress by Location:
Charlotte County – Estimated Return of Service
Cape Haze – 10/15
Don Pedro Island – 10/21
Port Charlotte – 10/15
Punta Gorda – 10/15
Collier County – Estimated Return of Service
Ave Maria – Predominantly Restored
Golden Gate – Predominantly Restored
Golden Gate Estates – Predominantly Restored
Immokalee – Predominantly Restored
Naples – Predominantly Restored
Barefoot Beach – 10/21
Everglades City – 11/16
Marco Island – 10/15
Old Naples/Port Royale – 10/21
Vanderbilt Beach – 10/21
DeSoto County – Estimated Return of Service
Arcadia – Predominantly Restored
Hendry County – Estimated Return of Service
LaBelle – Predominantly Restored
Highlands County – Estimated Return of Service
Sebring – Predominantly Restored
Lee County – Estimated Return of Service
Bonita Springs – Predominantly Restored
Lehigh Acres – Predominantly Restored
Alva – 10/11
Boca Grande – 10/22
Bonita Beach – 10/21
Cape Coral – 10/15
Captiva – 12/16
Central Fort Myers – 10/11
Fort Myers – 10/11
Fort Myers Beach – 11/15
Iona Lakes – 10/21
North Fort Myers – 10/15
Pine Island – 11/23
Punta Rassa – 10/21
Sanibel – 12/16
Century Link says the following:
- We hope to have more services operational by the end of the week.
- Lumen/CenturyLink is offering Emergency Call Forwarding free of charge for 90 days to residential and small business customers in southwest Florida impacted by Hurricane Ian. The service allows customers who have been displaced from their home or business due to the hurricane to receive their home or business phone calls on an alternative number. CenturyLink is also waiving late fees, vacation service fees and disconnect fees for impacted customers. To set up these services, customers can call 800-244-1111. We are also evaluating our general out of service credit process and will have more on that later.
The post Customers throughout SWFL frustrated with no internet service appeared first on NBC2 News.
