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www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday March 21, 2007 - 11 Damage to submerged cable the culprit Continued from page 10 able to work on it. I still don't have telephone. I need the telephone and I need the Internet for my business because I'm a graphic design firm, so we're constantly going back and forth with PDFs and I can't do it," said Fortin. "It's kind of scary in a way because it's telling me how much I rely on the Internet to survive in my business, so now I have to think of an alternate service I can use that will be more reliable." While some residents are racking up huge cell phone bills dealing with the disconnected service others can't even do this. "If there was a fire, we'd just have to run into the street and scream because we don't have a cell phone or anything," said Malcolm Teal. While he understands that "The only good thing about this is that there haven't been any calls from telemarketers." Gina Mickleson, Oakville resident repairs need to be done from time to time, the big problem Teal and many of the other residents had with Bell's handling of the situation is that they did not notify anyone what was happening. "They could have come around and told people. It wouldn't have taken long for someone to have come and left some flyers or something, but they're not even trying to tell people," said Teal. "They've left us all in a lurch without any knowledge," said John Trovato. Fortin says the hassle she is going through could have been prevented had Bell given her an idea of just how long the maintenance was going to take. "I could have arranged to work in another office in order for my business to be seamless, but now it's too late. It's Friday and we're hearing now that it might not even be fixed by Monday, said Fortin late last week." Pasquini says the unpredictable nature of fixing damaged cable makes public notification difficult. "Often we can't do an ETA until we get to where it's damaged and because this was a submarine cable it's a little more unique. There is a little bit more time involved to do a critical assessment of the damage and we just really got that today," said Pasquini, on Friday. "If you think of the disruptions that happen from construction crews or downed trees it's difficult to go and proactively reach out to customers, though we do with our best intentions work to get things back up as fast as possible. In this instance it's gone on a couple days and we regret that, but that service will be up on the weekend." As of yesterday some residents in the Queen Mary and River Side Drive area were still reporting they have no phone service. "We have two or three Bell technical crews on site, working on this 24 hours since it started. It is a priority for us to get service back up and we apologize," said Pasquini. "We regret the phone interruption to the folks in the Oakville area that are impacted and we want to make sure they know that we're working on it and that we're dedicated to getting phone service back up as soon as possible." For many residents the hassle has proven too much and they are considering alternatives to Bell. "The only good thing about this is there haven't been any calls from telemarketers," laughed Gina Mickleson. Tory to review budget for Chamber The Oakville Chamber of Commerce will be hosting Conservative Leader John Tory who is coming to Oakville to discuss and analyze the 2007 Ontario Budget. The presentation will begin at 8 a.m. on March 26, only a few days after the budget's release. The Oakville Conference Centre, located at 2515 Wyecroft Rd, will serve as the setting for what is sure to be a memorable morning. Pre-registration is required and begins at 7:30 a.m. on the morning of the meeting. Those attending will be treated to a full breakfast. 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