A group of residents in a remote part of northeastern Rio Arriba County are lobbying Windstream Communications to fix phone service problems they say have persisted for years.
“It’s been going on forever, but it’s gotten worse,” said Elias Archuleta, who owns a house near Servilleta.
About 60 residents — from Servilleta, Petaca and Las Tablas — have signed a petition asking Windstream to address the phone problems partly because of the potential safety hazard, Archuleta said. Service is often unavailable for days at time, he said.
The petition was presented to Windstream Network Operations Manager Frank Quintana in late June, but not much has changed since then, Archuleta said.
Quintana said Windstream is in the process of reconfiguring its network in the area to eliminate six miles of copper lines that he said have been apparently damaged by gunshots in the past. He said hunters may have accidentally shot the lines.
The periods of lost service have probably been caused by the damaged lines, which malfunctioned when they got wet, he said.
The first phase of the project, to repair the lines to Servilleta and make high speed internet available to those residents, should have been finished by Wednesday (12/2), Quintana said.
He said the repairs to Petaca and Las Tablas should be finished by the end of January at the latest.
Archuleta said Quintana told him in June the problem was with outdated copper lines that would be replaced with optic fiber lines within a month.
Petaca resident Stella Torrez said her home loses phone service for two to three days after every heavy rain, which she said is especially worrisome considering her husband has a disability and can’t walk.
“If he gets sick, I wonder what can I do to call for help,” Torrez said.