Charter’s Spectrum customers will be waiting a long time for service credit if their cable service has been out as a result of the recent hurricanes in Texas and Florida.

The cable company, while trying to fend off increasing criticism for its mysterious service restoration effort, is also in no mood to compensate customers for weeks-long outages, unless they specifically ask.

The Orlando Sentinel has joined the story the Miami Herald started writing a week earlier. Customers are not impressed with Charter’s response to Hurricane Irma and they want a refund and some answers.

The cable company, which dominates the central Florida cities of Orlando and Tampa that used to be Bright House Networks’ territory, is being blasted for “vague repair timelines” and a bad attitude.

The Sentinel:

Bob Rader went without service for a week after the storm ripped through the region early Sept. 11. Adding to the 80-year-old’s frustrations are the tough time he has had getting answers from the company, he said.

“At first, they made me feel optimistic because they seemed to know there were people in my neighborhood without service,” he said. “Then, every other time, I got wrapped into a maze of telephone button punching.”

Spectrum representatives have made it clear the only way customers are going to get credit for service lost during Irma is if they contact the company and ask for it, which is easier said than done.

Jenny Paterson told Stop the Cap! she has tried to call more than a dozen times, but the hold times are so severe, she is afraid her cell phone battery will die before she gets to talk to anyone.

“I am not using my minutes up waiting on hold with them and they never call you back,” Paterson claims. “I’ve tried just about everything and the local cable store wants you to call in too.”

Customers claim seeing one of these trucks is a rarity in central Florida.

She has been without service for more than a week and “nobody knows nothing about anything,” in response to questions about when she’ll get her service back.

“The impact of this monster storm was felt across Florida and in some areas worse than others,” Charter spokesman Joe Durkin offered shortly after the storm.

“Obviously,” responds Paterson. “I could tell you that. But what Mr. Durkin and I share in common is the fact neither one of us have any idea when the company he works for might be by my neighborhood to take a look and fix things. We’re more likely to spot a UFO than a Spectrum truck around here.”

The Sentinel notes a lot of business customers who bought Spectrum’s “business class” service are now regretting it as outages cost them customers.

Bob Patterson, who runs a Sunoco gas station in College Park, estimates he has lost $10,000 because customers leave when they find out he can only accept cash. His credit card terminals, which depend on Spectrum’s internet service, are not working. He has made an effort to collect some credit card numbers from customers and manually process the transactions from his home at the end of the night, but that isn’t a good substitute for a difficult situation.

What infuriates Patterson, who is not related to Ms. Paterson, is that the cable company is rubbing salt in his wounds.

“It doesn’t work all week, then you call their number and it says the best way to reach them is on the Internet,” said Patterson. “But guess what? We don’t have any Internet.”

Oddly and without any explanation, the FCC stopped asking utilities to report their outage numbers related to Hurricane Irma on Sept. 18, despite the fact its last report on that same day indicated at least 893,409 customers were without cable or phone service because of Irma. With the FCC no longer releasing outage data, service providers have refused to pick up the slack, claiming outage details are “proprietary business information.”

A construction crew accidentally severed a single fiber optic cable on Monday and wiped out TV, broadband, and phone service for Comcast customers in metropolitan Denver.

The outage began at 4:30pm and lasted until around midnight when service was restored. Customers reported problems across Denver, Aurora, and other surrounding areas.

In these circumstances, Comcast does not usually give automatic bill credits for service outages — customers have to request them. But the widespread outage triggered a press release from Comcast claiming service credits will be automatic for “affected customers:”

We appreciate everyone’s patience during yesterday’s service outage in the Denver area. We regret the impact to our customers and we want to make it right. We are conducting an investigation into the cause and full impact of the outage. Upon completion of the investigation and identification of the impacted residential customers, we will automatically apply credits to their accounts.

If you are still experiencing issues with your service please send your account number and a brief description to our customer care team by clicking here or connect with an agent by phone or chat here.

If you want to be certain about receiving a credit, contact Comcast directly and ask for one instead of waiting for them.

The Orlando Sentinel got more than it asked for when it requested readers share their experiences with utility service outages in the wake of Hurricane Irma, which pounded Florida last week.

Readers reserved the most wrath for Charter Communications, which has evidently been less than forthcoming about service restoration.

“Give me something other than ‘we depend on somebody else and we have no idea about anything.’ […] That’s not an appropriate answer,” shared one Winter Park customer.

Charter’s spokespeople have blamed most of the outages on “the massive loss of commercial power that the state suffered.”

Customers seemed to buy that explanation until early this week, days after getting their power back.

“As I read their answer, it’s basically a lot of nothing,” opined the customer. “My experience with calling them is their answer is so vague [….] They could probably be a little more reassuring explaining ‘in this area the power comes from this place, and that place has an ETA of this, therefore some days later they expect this will be online.’”

“Our power was restored in the Crown Pt. Springs subdivision in Winter Garden on Monday afternoon, which we were very thankful for,” another reader said in an email. “I sure wish I could say the same thing about our Spectrum services (cable, internet and phone). As of right now, there is still no restoration.”

Still another: “Spectrum should be able to give their customers an estimated restoration time, like the power companies have. I haven’t seen one Spectrum truck in the Winter Garden or Ocoee area … not one!!! My husband drives a tractor-trailer for Coke and has seen one on the road this week. We are sick of them blaming the power companies for the reason that they can’t get into areas.”

At least 7,597,945 Floridians are without cable, broadband and phone service after Hurricane Irma left large sections of Florida without power or wired telecommunications service.

According to the Federal Communications Commission, service providers have self-reported multiple large outages including 911 service, cell towers, cable service, and radio and television services. In many cases, the outages are directly tied to power interruptions, and many expect service will resume soon after Florida utilities get electricity service back up and running.

Telephone

Providers report 390 central switching offices are non functioning across Florida at this time. These offices handle landline calls and wired broadband from AT&T and Frontier Communications, among other telephone companies. Where physical damage from wind or water has occurred, it could take weeks or months before those offices are fully restored, but temporary provisions for restoring basic phone service are likely to be in place within days.

There are also significant 911 outages across Florida:

No 911 Service, Calls Going Unanswered: Big Cypress Indian Reservation, Collier County EOC, Ft. Myers Police Department, Glades County Sheriff, Glades County Sheriff Back Up, Hardee County Back Up, Hendry County Sheriff, Highlands County Sheriff, Lee County Emergency Dispatch Center EOC, Naples PD, Okeechobee County Sheriff’s Department, Homestead Air Force, Marathon SO, and Ocean Reef.

911 Service With No Automatic Caller Location Information (ALI): Hardee County Sheriff and Lee County Sheriff

Re-routed with ALI: Atlantic Beach PD, Belle Glade PD, Indian River SO, Manalapan PD, Miami Beach PD, Neptune Beach PD, and St. Augustine PD

Re-routed without ALI: 4 Clewiston Police Department, Desoto County Sheriff, Lee County Backup, and Sanibel Police Department

Potential Outage: The Broward County South Region 911 Center lost power as of 9/10/17 at 2:28PM EDT. We do not know if 911 calls are being rerouted.

Wireless Service

Overall, 27.4% of cell sites in the disaster area of Florida are out of service. The worst outages are in:

• Collier County: 160 of 212 cell sites are down. (75.5%)
• Hendry County: 31 out of 46 cell sites are down. (67.4%)
• Highlands County: 42 out of 80 cell sites are down. (52.5%)
• Lee County: 186 out of 343 cell sites are down. (54.2%)
• Miami-Dade County: 739 out of 1,435 cell sites down. (51.5%)
• Monroe County: 87 out of 108 cell sites down. (80.6%)

Broadcasting

There are two television stations out of service in Florida: WVFW and WZVN. There are 26 radio stations off the air: W227CP, W300CL, W222AW, WROK, WAOA-FM, WHKR, WLZR, WIOD, WOLZ, WINZ, WBTT, WCKT, WRUM, WQOL, WZZR, WSWN, WOTW, WMFQ, WXUS, WYCG, WEAT, WTIR, WMYR, WCNZ, and W294AN.

Rosenworcel

Significant, days-long outages of wireless cell, wireline, and 911 service in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey are prompting a FCC commissioner to ask how things could go better the next time, even as Category 5 Irma is expected to head for Florida this week.

Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel believes the FCC should look closely at the impact of Harvey on telecommunications networks in southeastern Texas and Louisiana and see what improvements can be made.

“As we begin to assess Harvey’s horrible toll on human life and property, we will need to take stock of what worked, what didn’t, and how we can improve when it comes to our communications infrastructure,” Rosenworcel said. “As we have done in disasters in the past, the Commission will need to study this hurricane and issue a report. That report must include a full plan for fixing the vulnerabilities that we are finding, from overloading 911 systems to out-of-service cell sites.”

Rosenworcel is also urging the Commission to insist that providers replace damaged telecommunications networks with better, more capable networks.

“[The study] should also include a framework for rebuilding so that the communities that have been impacted are not permanently relegated to the wrong side of the digital divide,” Rosenworcel urged. “Above all, we need to get started. We don’t have time to waste, because we know that weather emergencies can occur anywhere at any time, and learning from what happened with Harvey can help strengthen our communications networks and save lives.”

A week after the storm, telecommunications networks in the area affected by Harvey are still experiencing problems, although most cell service has been restored. The worst affected areas are in Aransas, Tex., where four of 19 cell towers are out of service and Orange, Tex., where 13 out of 85 cell towers are not working as of this morning.

Category 5 Irma projected to affect Florida.

There are at least 153,850 subscribers (down from at least 158,086 yesterday) out of service in the affected area. This includes users who get service from cable system or wireline providers.

Cable ONE announced last week that it will be waiving billing for its Texas Coast customers impacted by Hurricane Harvey for the duration of the storm until services are restored. The company also will not be charging customers for equipment damaged during the hurricane.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the Texas and Louisiana communities that have been ravaged by Hurricane Harvey,” said Julie Laulis, president and CEO of Cable ONE.  “We urge all of our customers to stay safe and continue following the directives of local public safety officials as response and recovery efforts begin.”

Cable ONE’s disaster recovery plan is underway as teams review and map fiber breaks, assess damage to impacted plant and equipment, and assist and coordinate with other organizations to begin the process of repairing and rebuilding.

“We will do everything we can to restore service to every one of our affected customers as quickly as possible, including deploying additional technicians and resources,” Laulis said. “Our priority, after first ensuring the safety of our associates, is to continue to serve our residential and business customers during and after the hurricane.”

There are 5 (2 down from yesterday) radio stations out of service. Those are all in Texas – KFNC, KTXB, KKWV, KRVT, and KAYK.

Two television stations went off the air over the weekend but have now been restored as of this morning. KBTV is back at reduced power and KFDM is operating from a backup transmitter.

Emergency 911 service is back up and working normally in most parts of the region with these exceptions:

• 911 Calls Rerouted With No Automatic Location Information (ALI): Refugio County SO, Tex.
• 911 Calls Rerouted With ALI: Harris County Neutral SO, Tex.; Houston EC Training, Tex.; Port Aransas PD, Tex.; and West Columbia PD, Tex.