Plenty of Bell Aliant telephone customers in Nova Scotia and P.E.I. were getting busy signals for a few hours on Wednesday. 

Debra Stasiulis was one of the people affected by the outage.

“My husband called Vetwise animal hospital and he kept getting a busy signal,” says Stasiulis.

Originally, the couple thought the problem was on their end.

Turns out some Bell Aliant customers in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island lost the ability to call in or out.

Lynn Melanson was also affected by the outage.

“My landline is all I have to get to the outside world, expect for things like Facebook and Twitter,” says Melanson.

For most, it was just an inconvenience.  However, some people who don't have cell phones were left wondering what would have happened in an emergency.

 “Had it been in the middle of a raging snowstorm and I had to call 9-1-1 I would have been in a lot of trouble and I am home with two small children,” adds Melanson.

Bell Aliant, which is in the process of being taken over by Bell, which owns CTV, declined to do an on camera interview.

However, in a statement, Bell Aliant says while there was no direct impact on 9-1-1 service. Affected customers were not able to make outgoing calls from their landlines.

Bell Aliant also says they will be investigating the service outage and exactly how many customers were affected.

With files from CTV’s Kelland Sundhal