FRANKLIN COUNTY, Va. (WDBJ) – People living on Mary Bett Hollow Road in Franklin County’s Ferrum depend on Brightspeed Internet for their internet service, and since there’s no cell phone signal in the rural area, they also depend on it to make phone calls.
Now, they’ve been without service for over a week, and in some cases, over three weeks. They say it’s causing them major problems.
“It’s kind of crushing for us. My wife just came back from the hospital, she had a total hip surgery, to coordinate with physical therapy, and coordinate appointments, and stuff like that, every time we want to call somebody or communicate, we have to drive about an hour, half an hour each way to town,” said Michael Krawitz, who lives on Mary Bett Hollow Road.
Krawitz said after losing service, he became frustrated with Brightspeed, and he soon learned his neighbors were having the same problem.
“I asked Brightspeed to come out and repair it, and they gave me a repair date like three or four weeks out. I’ve never had that before. I’ve had repair calls with the phone company where they come out in a week or something like that, but almost a month out seemed unusual to me,” he said.
Krawitz and his wife are one of five families on Mary Bett Hollow Road who have been without phone and internet service for over a week. 89-year-old Rebecca Shively has been dealing with the problem for even longer; she has been without service for three weeks.
“It’s been hard emotionally. It gets on my nerves because I think about how I can’t do anything without a phone or internet, because I pay all my bills online,” said Shively. “I don’t sleep well because it gets on my mind, and I can’t sleep. It’s not good.”
Shively said Brightspeed told her three weeks ago it would come out to restore her service on July 29, but so far, service has not been restored. She said she also can’t communicate with Brightspeed because of the lack of phone service.
“I’ve been calling my sister-in-law, going out at 6:00 in the morning in the dark, and sometimes I get enough signal on my cellphone to call her. But this morning and yesterday morning, I couldn’t do that, nothing, cellphones won’t work here,” said Shively.
Brightspeed said the issue is due to downed utility poles that have damaged its service lines. Michael Love filed a complaint against Brightspeed with the FCC on behalf of his neighbors, which the FCC said was served on Tuesday.
“I worked in communications for 31 years before I retired. The company I worked for, we weren’t perfect, but nobody would be without service for three weeks under normal circumstances. If you had a major ice storm, tornado, or a hurricane, I understand that, but for no reason just three weeks out?” said Love.
Love and his wife switched from Brightspeed to Starlink earlier in the year after continued service issues.
“When I got Starlink, I thought I was done. I said, ‘I’m not going to have to worry about it anymore.’ But then Becky tells me her service is out and she’s not getting a service call until the 29th, which is today. I was like, ‘That’s unacceptable, ’” said Love.
Love said the neighbors have been helping each other out as best they can. He said this is not the first time Brightspeed customers in Franklin County have had issues.
“I see and hear it every day. I know there are some people out there that probably get great service from them, but I think in the more rural offshoot areas, they’re just not maintaining their equipment,” said Love.
Michael Krawitz said seeing the damaged service lines in the woods has been frustrating.
“It’s not just like a tree fell down, a branch broke, and knocked a wire down. There is enough debris, trees, and stuff down on that line that you can tell it hasn’t been maintained in a while. We really do feel kind of abandoned out here by Brightspeed,” he said.
Brightspeed Public Relations Director Gene Miller provided the following statement to WDBJ7 regarding the situation:
Our priority is providing our customers with the services they depend on. Unfortunately, customers living off of Mary Bett Hollow Road in Ferrum, Virginia, are experiencing service interruptions due to downed utility poles causing damage to our service lines.
Additionally, our repair crews are challenged by a highly overgrown right-of-way impeding the ability to replace the downed poles. Our crews are currently awaiting utility locate requests to be complete in order to start replacing the poles and the damaged line.
We anticipate our crews will complete this work by the end of the week, assuming the requests are completed quickly, which will restore services to our customers. We know this is frustrating and we ask for their patience.
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