Still restoring internet for Brightspeed, CenturyLink
Those that use Brightspeed, or any of its subsidiaries such as CenturyLink, in Texas and Louisiana were without internet for six days last week and some are still without internet and/or voice dialing services.
Gene Miller, Brightspeed public relations director, said there are still some communities in Texas and Louisiana experiencing voice dialing issues and the company is working diligently with its partner carriers to resolve those issues.
“Over the weekend, we were able to restore the voice dialing issues in the San Marcos area that were related to Hurricane Beryl. We escalated the issues immediately to our partner carriers who support this network, and they were able to reach resolution over the weekend. We will continue to partner with them to monitor stability,” Miller said. “Several communities in eastern Texas and western Louisiana have been impacted by the effects of the hurricane. At this point, we have approximately 2,200 broadband internet service customers experiencing outages related to ongoing power outages in the Houston area, in addition to the voice dialing issues in communities in Texas and Louisiana.”
Orrin McCray, a San Marcos resident, said that his internet went out at approximately 5 p.m. Monday afternoon, and Deborah McCray attempted to speak to customer service Tuesday.
“The AI bot said there was no outage in our area, so she escalated the problem,” McCray said, adding that a Brightspeed agent called them back on Wednesday. “They said there was no outage in our area, but if there was, it was because of Hurricane Beryl. They gave us credit, and we escalated the call again. … [Thursday night], they finally acknowledged an outage in our area.”
The McCray’s internet was restored at 4 a.m. on Saturday.
Miller said Brightspeed is working around the clock to restore services for those that are still without voice or internet services.
“We do not have an estimated time of when those will be resolved as we are reliant on the restoration of power to areas still experiencing power outages,” Miller said. “Our customers are our number one priority, and we understand that access to our services is critical. We continue to work 24-7 to restore services to all customers who are still affected.”
Miller said Brightspeed is working to ensure that those impacted by weather related outages have their services restored as promptly as possible.
“As expected, there are many factors involved in ensuring the restoration of services, including coordination with other providers in many cases,” Miller said. “In this case, we are still dealing with power outages and outages experienced by partner carriers. We are working around the clock and have contacted our partner carriers to ensure these issues are escalated and resolved for the small number of customers who are still affected.”
Miller explained Brightspeed’s connection to CenturyLink.
“Brightspeed was launched in October 2022 following the acquisition of incumbent local exchange carrier assets and associated operations across 20 states from Lumen Technologies, including some of the former CenturyLink assets, by Apollo-managed funds,” Miller said. “When we launched, we made a multi-billion-dollar commitment to build a more reliable, high-speed fiber broadband network that will reach more than three million homes and businesses across our 20-state footprint, including Texas. Our fiber build is well under way, and we have more than 1.2 million fiber-enabled locations so far.”