Princeton residents got a sharp reminder this week about how important the internet is to their lives.
Before 9 a.m. Thursday Feb. 18 users of both Telus and Eastlink were reporting outages, which as of 2:30 Friday Feb. 19 were unresolved.
According to the Telus website a cable serving the community was damaged, which affected a portion of Telus subscribers.
Eastlink customers were also pushed off-line.
While telecommunications businesses often share infrastructure, a spokesperson for Eastlink said these are seperate issues.
“We can’t speak to Telus’ situation, but I can confirm our service impact is on our network.”
Laing told the Spotlight that Eastlink’s outage was due to damage in the network and repairs were hampered by weather.
“They are now underway and we hope to have service back up and running later this evening.”
The Telus website also said the estimated time of repair is late Friday.
Meanwhile, the broad outages have inconvenienced the community.
Some business have been unable to use their debit and credit devices, and residents have been stressed.
“Now that we haven’t had service for a good 24 hours, I have to go home in between my shifts to make sure my mother and daughter are okay,” said Elloraine Reyes. “We use the internet as main entertainment at home, (and to) call loved ones abroad and as main home security.”
Sherry Berry said she too is looking at different options for amusement.
“I’ll have to hook up the old DVD player and listen to CBC Radio for now.”
Emily Bain Herzog said the service interruption is a trial for people who work from home.
Most everything I do needs internet. I’ll be working most of the weekend once the internet is back, to catch up.”
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Do you have something to add to this story, or something else we should report on? Email:mailto:andrea.demeer@similkameenspotlight.com
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