Phone and internet service restoration still a priority in P.E.I. after Fiona

Nine days after Hurricane Fiona battered Prince Edward Island, tens of thousands remain without power, but with so many downed lines, electricity isn’t the only thing that needs to be fixed.

Phone and internet connections have been severed for many as well. Just after the storm, many parts of the island were completely without service.

Restoration work has been going on since shortly after the storm passed. Some of that early work was focused on restoring power to cell towers.

Bell Canada's President and CEO joined other senior leaders in getting a first-hand look at the damage today.

“This is the largest hurricane to hit Canada,” said Glen LeBlanc, BCE and Bell Canada Chief Financial Officer and Vice Chair, Atlantic Canada. “I spoke to a technician here in P.E.I. today who’s been with us 47 years, and the extent of the damage is unprecedented.”

Some never lost cell service. The main tower in Charlottetown has a pair of emergency generators, and they power the core of Bell telecom infrastructure on the island in case of a power outage.

Without them, phone and internet from the Bell network would have been down for the whole island.

Spotty coverage in the network after the storm was caused mainly by a lack of power to 138 of the company’s 1,100 towers.

“At the height of the storm, we would’ve had materially more sites out because they lost power,” said LeBlanc. “The very first step is the restoration of power, so once we're cleared by the power corporation that it’s safe for our technicians to enter, they will begin starting generators, and that’s why cellular service comes up fairly rapidly.”

There are still about 49 towers damaged by the storm which aren’t yet at 100 per cent, mainly sustaining damage to the antenna or fibre optic cables at the sites.

The major bottleneck in phone and internet restoration now is power restoration. Trees need to be cleared and line crews need to assess and repair damage before telecommunications workers can start their jobs.

“The fact that we were able to bring as many people back online as fast as we had is remarkable,” said LeBlanc. “Again, thanks to our people.”

At the supper hour, 20,000 homes and businesses on P.E.I. were still without electricity.

The majority of those are expected to have power back by Monday night, but some with significant damage will be out even longer.