First it was a neighbourhood in Scarborough where 175 customers lost their phone service for about two weeks, but then two pockets of homes in west Toronto were hit by Bell Canada outages lasting a similar length of time — this time leaving both telephone and internet customers disconnected.
“It’s very frustrating,” said Jonas Mangao, who lives on Northcliffe Boulevard. He’s lost the use of his landline phone and internet service.
Next door, Sergio Giacomini is in the same situation with this wife and three children: no internet, no phone line.
Giacomini’s wife typically works from home one or two days a week, but she said she can’t do that until the outage is fixed. The couple and their children said they consider themselves fortunate because they have access to mobile phones. However, the family has consumed large amounts of cellular data because the line disruption hasn’t been fixed.
Much of the concern in the neighbourhood is for those without a secondary link to the outside world. Many seniors on the street don’t own a cellphone. As a result, they have no access to 911 emergency service.
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“There’s no telephone, no television … I’m afraid,” said neighbour Raffaela Vercillo speaking in translated Italian.
Vercillo would not be able to call Toronto’s emergency services because her line is not functional.
“Widespread outages are not very common, and of course we do our best to repair damage and return service as soon as possible to our customers,” said Nathan Gibson, a spokesperson for Bell Canada.
Gibson said a fallen tree on a utility pole caused the outage on Northcliffe Boulevard.
“While the property owners involved resolve the tree removal so we can access our equipment, we have put in a request for a temporary pole replacement and are investigating further temporary solutions to restore service this week,” he said in an emailed statement.
“I pay for it every month. It’s very frustrating, let me tell you,” said another neighbour, Angelo Leutri, adding he’s had a Bell landline phone for 60 years.
Kath Siriunas wrote to Global News out of concern for her 85-year-old father. He has a cognitive impairment, wears a pacemaker after a heart attack and is connected to an emergency medical lifeline through his phone. But without phone service, the lifeline won’t work.
“Two weeks without the lifeline for a senior who really relies on it is unacceptable,” Siriunas said.
“I remind my father to keep his mobile phone with him but he forgets.”
“Two recent cable cuts in the Adeline Court area resulted in service disruptions,” said Gibson, explaining the issue in that part of the city.
Less than four hours after Global News asked Bell Canada to justify the delay, phone service was restored at the man’s home.
“I am thankful to report my father’s landline was back in service around 3 p.m. today,” she wrote while crediting Global News for pushing Bell to get the service restored immediately.
Bell Canada said it provided 24 mobile phones for temporary use of customers after the Scarborough outage. But none of the residents in west Toronto were aware of any temporary accommodation because no one from Bell had contacted them, they said.
Telecom engineer Arshad Munshi said Bell should deploy a Cell on Wheels, or COW, program to provide phone and internet service to customers “while figuring out the issue” and making permanent repairs.
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