CenturyLink internet for some Cape Coral residents out until 2023, Comcast restored 95%

Luis Zambrano, Fort Myers News-Press
·2 min read

CenturyLink customers in Cape Coral might not have their internet restored until early 2023, and Comcast has restored 95% of its customers in Cape Coral.

Hurricane Ian tore through Southwest Florida three weeks ago and residents in Cape Coral are still without internet.

"The level of damage is significant," Martin Valence, vice president of Lumen Technologies, said at a Cape Coral meeting on Wednesday afternoon.

Line crews continue to work along Agualinda Boulevard to restore power to area residents in Cape Coral Sunday, Oct. 9, 2022. Many people continue to struggle without power at their homes after impact from Hurricane Ian.
Line crews continue to work along Agualinda Boulevard to restore power to area residents in Cape Coral Sunday, Oct. 9, 2022. Many people continue to struggle without power at their homes after impact from Hurricane Ian.

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Lumen Technologies, of which CenturyLink is a part, said early on the company focused on restoring wireless communication to public safety agencies and hospitals.

Valence said 22,000 CenturyLink accounts were impacted by the storm at its peak, and Cape Coral customers are still impacted.

Almost 30%, or 6,600 customers, are not responding to CenturyLink's network or services, and the company does not know the connectivity status, such as whether there's damage to wires, of 3,000 of those customers.

Excess flooding and wind damaged wires, broke poles, and damaged remote terminals causing issues with restoration.

"We got a lot of crews in place, and we will continue to drive up the level of restorations," Valence said. "The storm surge impacted the electronics that are local to the area."

CenturyLink has 250 employees doing assessments and looking for damage.

"There's going to be some extended (restoration) for a small set of customers," Valence said.

Customers should call CenturyLink for down lines and service at 1-800-577-4333.

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Comcast aims for complete restoration in a few weeks.

"Anybody that is still out, they had particularly major damage to their area," said Jen Boyett, external affairs senior manager for Comcast.

There are fewer than 1,500 Comcast customers left to be restored in Cape Coral, Mindy Kramer, vice president of public relations with Comcast, wrote in an email.

Communities like Sanibel and Captiva islands and Fort Myers Beach are not included in the power restoration estimates because the entire infrastructure needs to be rebuilt for those areas.

Comcast was able to focus more on restoring the internet in the last few days because of the restoration of power throughout the city, according to Boyett.

"We cleared out a lot of outages in the area, and restored another 11,000 customers between yesterday and today alone," Boyett said.

Customers without service should call 800-Xfinity, but they should expect a long wait time. Online forms at www.Xfinity.com/customer-requests can be filled out to let the provider know about downed lines or services.

Luis Zambrano is a Watchdog/Cape Coral reporter for The News-Press and the Naples Daily News. You can reach Luis at Lzambrano@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @Lz2official.

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Hurricane Ian: Cape Coral updated on CenturyLink, Comcast internet fix