SUNDRE – Telus customers in Sundre and other locales in Alberta reportedly had their service restored some time over night following Thursday's outage that lasted well into the night.
The telecommunications company that provides phone, internet and television services had initially reported the outage on Thursday, Dec. 19 at 11:18 a.m.
A later update posted at 1:55 p.m. stated that the outage was the result of "cable damage caused by unaffiliated construction work being performed in the area."
At 3:07 p.m., the company had provided another update stating that the cause of the issue had been identified and additional personnel and equipment were dispatched to support repair efforts.
Later at 4:38 p.m., the next update confirmed that service technicians were on-site with repairs underway.
Services were all restored by the start of business hours on Friday, Dec. 20.
Among the local businesses that were impacted was Sundre Dental Clinic, where staff were relieved to find the main phone line functional upon opening the office this morning.
While communications were derailed by the service interruption, receptionist Crystal Hovland said, "We're happy we were able to manage and pull through."
Past interruptions have generally been much more brief, she said.
"If it goes down, it's quickly up again. So that was the main concern, was the length of time."
Although customers were unable to reach the main line throughout the outage, "we were able to get our voicemails sent through our emails, but we were able to call back on a different telephone through a different provider," Hovland told the Albertan.
The main issue was the possibility of missed appointments if anyone who was calling had been unable to get through and ended up deciding to call a different office, she said.
But despite the hiccup, they largely managed to carry on.
"We were able to manage on our end and continue our business as usual for the day, but it was slower."
