The mayor of Port Hardy is expressing concerns with the community’s connectivity following a Telus outage earlier this month which left several homes and businesses without phone services.
According to Emergency Info B.C., service was unavailable in Alert Bay, Campbell River, Port Alice, Port Hardy, Port Mcneill, Quatsino, Sayward, Tahsis and Woss during the widespread outage on September 3.
Port Hardy Mayor Patricia Corbett-Labatt says many residents were distressed through the service interruption, and updates from Telus were sporadic.
“[Residents] had no idea what was going on” says Corbett-Labatt. “When some text messages started coming in from Telus, they didn’t come to everybody.”
During the almost 10-and-a-half-hour outage, Telus customers were unable to contact 911.
“[The outage] made us much more aware how important Telus is to our community,” says the mayor. “We need to not be so dependent on one provider.”
She adds the district hasn’t gotten to a point of discussing alternative providers, but have previously considered other options.
“We know that the Connected Coast project has been working at connecting everyone on the coast” says Corbett-Labatt, adding “that would be another agency that could be a provider.”
Telus says the outage was caused by vandalism to its infrastructure.
– Article includes image from District of Port Hardy Facebook page
