Verizon customers on the Vineyard continue to experience high-speed internet outages across the Island due to damaged equipment in Falmouth, the phone company confirmed Thursday.
Phil Santoro said the outage is due to a “weather-related roof collapse” at a Verizon facility in Falmouth on Saturday. The total number of affected customers is still unknown, he said.
Internet service has been down since Monday for many Verizon customers, including Vineyard Scripts in Vineyard Haven. Information has been scant and hard to come by, pharmacy owner David Perzanowki said.
“I started in India, then I was transferred to Costa Rica, then someone in the United States,” he said. “Finally an Island person called about our plight to give me more believable information.”
Mr. Perzanowski said he understood that around 280 people had been affected by the outage.
Internet was originally supposed to be restored by the end of the day on Tuesday, Mr. Perzanowski said, then again yesterday. He said he was keeping his fingers crossed for Friday morning.
With no internet, the pharmacy has reverted to a dial-up connection in order to process insurance claims for prescriptions.
“We haven’t done dial-up in 10 or 15 years,” Mr. Perzanowski said with the familiar sound of a connection dialing overheard in the background. “It’s a nightmare. What usually takes two seconds takes about 20 minutes.”
Edgartown National Bank was also reeling from the lack of internet. The bank’s online banking system was still down as of press time. A customer service representative at the bank said while many customers had been understanding of the shutdown, others wanted to close their accounts out of frustration. Martha’s Vineyard Savings Bank experienced a similar outage but is now back up and running.
The Tisbury post office is experiencing a similar outage. Without internet and computer access, postal workers are unable to use the credit card machine at the front counter and file internal postal reports. Mail delivery has not been affected.
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