Phone service expected to be restored today

By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer

Telephone service to all 3,500 Verizon Hawai'i customers in Haha'ione Valley was expected to be restored by early this morning.

As of 4 p.m. yesterday, 700 customers were still without service, said Verizon spokesman Brian Blevins. Work crews last night continued to restore service at a rate of 75 lines per hour.

The entire valley lost its telephone service Thursday afternoon when a contractor doing underground work severed a cable on Hawai'i Kai Drive. Since then, about 100 Verizon employees have worked around the clock to splice the 3,500 lines.

About 500 residents took advantage of a service offered by Verizon to forward incoming calls to cellular phones, while others used a temporary phone bank. The phone company also provided free Internet hookups at the old Phone Mart store in Hawai'i Kai Shopping Center.

Blevins said "at any given moment (Sunday), there were four to five people making use" of the phones, he said.

Blevins said customers will receive credit for the days they went without service. He said the contractor will be billed for the repair cost, estimated at more than $100,000, incurred by Verizon.

The contractor, identified by a Verizon official as Foundation International Inc., could not be reached for comment yesterday.