Most customers impacted by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma have had their telephone service restored at this point. But for those who haven’t, the wait is extremely frustrating.

One customer’s response to an article in the Hattiesburg American was telling.

Less than 600 BellSouth customers in Forrest, Lamar, Jones and Marion counties remained without phone service Monday, 10 weeks after Hurricane Katrina knocked out more than 600,000 customer lines statewide.

Among the 565 customers who had reported telephone problems, some are new repairs that don’t stem from the Aug. 29 storm, said Rick Stewart, regional manager for the 25-county Hattiesburg district — which includes the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

“The number of individual repair tickets or trouble reports on Monday was about what we get on a daily basis in normal times,” Stewart said.

The report shows problems were reported on 276 lines in Forrest County, 71 lines in Jones County, 148 lines in Lamar County and 70 lines in Marion County.

While most of South Mississippi’s utility, power and cable services were restored two to three weeks after Katrina, nearly 4,000 people remained without phone service in Jones, Forrest and Lamar counties a week ago. — Hattiesburg American

Debbie Ingram of Hattiesburg, who hasn’t had telephone service since Aug. 29, couldn’t believe this, and wrote a scathing letter to the editor.

When I read the article “BellSouth close to restoring full service” in the Nov. 8 edition of the Hattiesburg American, I almost fell out of my chair. What a joke. I still do not have service and have not had service since Aug. 29 when a tree fell on my line and pulled it loose from the house. I reported the outage to BellSouth on Sept. 9 and advised them that the line was laying in my yard and a skidder had cut the one on the street going to my yard. I was given an Oct. 30 date as when to expect my service to be restored.

I have contacted BellSouth at least four or five times since then and mentioned to each individual that I talked to that the line was laying in the yard and I did not have service. They even called me twice on my cell phone to see that my service was operating properly and were told, again, that I still did not have service.

After reading the latest article in the Hattiesburg American, I called BellSouth again to discover that they had tested my line and, because there was no trouble on the line, they had closed my ticket. I repeated to the BellSouth representative once again that my phone still does not work because the line is laying in the yard. She has reopened the ticket, and now I have been given a Nov. 14 date to expect to have my service restored. . . .

If all BellSouth does is test the lines from a computer and get a report saying there is no trouble on the line and proceeds to close the ticket, then of course it would appear that more service has been restored than has actually been restored.

What happened to doing physical inspections for each of the tickets reported? — Debbie Ingram

I can answer this question. BellSouth, SBC, Verizon and Qwest have adopted policies where, in certain circumstances, they will not dispatch on a repair ticket when the line tests OK.

A normally functioning line tests OK (MLT ver code 0) when automated test equipment sends a brief ringing voltage and the voltage drop measured across the line is consistent with a telephone on the line actually ringing. This is why you may hear a brief ring on your line when the telephone company tests it. A line downed by trees will not normally test OK, but it could test OK if such a voltage drop is measured across the line due to environmental conditions. Normally, such a damaged line will return an open (MLT ver codes 41, 42 or 45), ground (MLT ver codes 17, 21, 23 or 24) or short (MLT ver codes 22, 25 or 75).

If the line tests OK, a “demand” for dispatch must be entered on the ticket by the person taking the trouble report. In the BellSouth service areas, a front-line repair representative would select Dispatch Out, then select Customer demands dispatch, when opening the ticket. The representative can also simply add the notation “DPO” (dispatch out) to the ticket.

According to BellSouth, all of its central office facilities are now operational across its nine-state service area, either on commercial power or emergency generators. All customers should be able to access voice mail and remote access to call forwarding services.

At this time BellSouth faces the “mammoth task” of rewiring over 100,000 individual lines. Repair crews are working twelve hour days, with only one day off every two weeks.

If your line remains out of service, contact BellSouth repair online or by phone at +1-888-757-6500 (residence) or +1-866-620-6000 (business) to open a repair ticket. Appointment intervals are at less than one week in most areas, though the hardest hit areas are still seeing intervals of one month or more.

View maps of current repair intervals in Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi. (PDF)

If you experience problems with getting BellSouth repair to actually visit your residence or business to effect repairs, and are unable to get help anywhere else, you should contact your state’s public service commission.

• Alabama Public Service Commission +1-800-392-8050
• Florida Public Service Commission +1-800-342-3552
• Louisiana Public Service Commission +1-800-256-2397
• Mississippi Public Service Commission (Phone numbers)

If you’ve filed a public service commission complaint, and are still unable to get BellSouth to repair your line, contact phone@ioerror.us or leave a message at +1-504-208-2788, and I’ll see what I can do. Leave your name, telephone number which is out of service, a description of what has happened with your situation to date, and an alternate phone number to reach you! Note that I can’t help you get a repair appointment date moved up, but I may be able to help if BellSouth misses a promised repair date.