PORTLAND — Several thousand Time Warner Cable customers in New England have been without Internet service since Tropical Storm Irene battered New England four days ago.
Though the outages are widespread, Time Warner spokesman Andrew Russell said many of the affected customers live in areas near New Gloucester and Sebago. He added that 90 percent of the company’s service has been restored.
Russell said the company knows the location of the outages and has 400 technicians working to repair damage. Some work has been delayed until utility crews restore electricity.
Central Maine Power reported this morning that 15,780 customers, including 7,290 in Cumberland County, remain without electricity.
For many customers, Internet outages mean lost business.
Alice Rose of Casco said she has been unable to work since the storm. Rose, who has electricity but no Internet service, teaches online classes on health law and ethics for St. Joseph’s College of Maine and runs a gardening business.
“If I can’t get online, I am not making money,” she said. “I have students all over the world and I can’t communicate with them.”
Rose said she called Time Warner but has not been given any useful information.
Russell said the outages that remain are largely the result of fallen trees and other damage caused the Sunday’s storm. They are not related to Time Warner’s systemwide network crash Tuesday, which left some 350,000 customers without Internet and phone service for hours. That crash was caused when a backup fiber-optic cable was damaged by flooding near Brattleboro, Vt.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
