Robbinsville – If you are a Verizon Wireless customer, you may have noticed some outages recently.
It wasn’t your imagination and you weren’t alone.
Over 11,000 customers were without reception for roughly 12 hours Aug. 2 after a fiber line was accidentally cut in the vicinity of Swain and Jackson counties. This comes after service in much of Graham County was just disrupted July 8, when heavy storms swept through the area. Restoration did not occur until later the next day.
“In recent weeks, third-party fiber cuts resulted in two disruptions for some customers in the Robbinsville area,” said Chris Serico, Communications Manager for Verizon. “Our engineers responded to the scene and service has been restored.”
Aside from fixing damaged fiber optic cables, Verizon and other wireless providers are working to deal with constantly and rapidly increasing demand for bandwidth.
“Verizon constantly invests in our network to deliver our customers the quality experience and reliability they expect and deserve,” Serico said. “As more people are doing more things, in more places with more internet-connected devices, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in voice and data traffic on our network.
“We only expect that trend to increase, which is why, after investing more than $200 million in North Carolina last year alone, Verizon is continuing to bolster the strength and reliability of its network statewide, including in Western N.C.”
However, outages in Graham County are just the latest chapter in a lengthy struggle western North Carolina has had with the provider.
In neighboring Cherokee County, reception has only worsened over the last three years – particularly in Andrews, where once-consistent service is now intermittent.
Or in much of the town, non-existent.
Residents from Cherokee County have recently noted the lack of stability, which was later compiled into a report from Asheville-based WLOS, after numerous customers reached out with their concerns.
In the report – published June 30 – Verizon pointed the finger of blame at a sudden influx of residents into the region.
“Since 2010, North Carolina has added over a million residents and welcomes tens of millions of visitors each year. Verizon is there to support customers and communities in North Carolina in a number of critical ways,” reads a statement from a Verizon representative that is not identified in the WLOS report.
The report later adds that Verizon noted the expansion of its 4G LTE network – as well as the introduction of 5G service – to almost 2.5 million customers across western North Carolina, concluding with a statement from Verizon that “its frontline response team is working to enhance areas all across North Carolina.”
Publisher/editor Kevin Hensley also contributed to this report.