Skip to main content

Slashdot: CenturyLink Left 86-Year-Old Woman With No Internet Service For a Month

CenturyLink Left 86-Year-Old Woman With No Internet Service For a Month
Published on August 29, 2023 at 01:27AM
Helen Marie Plourde, an 86-year-old Minnesota resident, just spent over a month without home Internet and phone service because CenturyLink failed to fix a problem that began in July. From a report: CenturyLink didn't show up for scheduled appointments at her home in Saint Paul, Plourde told Ars in a phone interview on Thursday, August 24, one day after the latest missed service appointment. Another appointment was scheduled for August 28, but she was skeptical that it would actually happen. "I'll believe it when I see them," Plourde said. Plourde buys broadband through Velocity Telephone, which resells CenturyLink fiber service in her area and acts as an intermediary between customers and CenturyLink for repairs. Velocity told us that it set up CenturyLink appointments for Plourde on August 10, August 17, and August 23, but no CenturyLink technicians showed up to any of the appointments. We talked to Plourde after hearing from Amalia Deloney, whose parents live nearby. Christopher Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Minneapolis, put Deloney in touch with us. "For the past month, [Plourde] has been going to my mom and dad's house to use the Internet two times a day because hers went out and CenturyLink can't be bothered fixing it. She's ready to write letters to elected officials and the Utilities Commission out of desperation," Deloney said. That didn't end up being necessary because CenturyLink sprang into action after Ars contacted the company's media relations team on Thursday night. A CenturyLink technician went to Plourde's home on Friday morning and fixed a line problem on a nearby street, restoring her Internet and VoIP phone service. Velocity, the CenturyLink reseller, also offers its own fiber service on infrastructure it owns in parts of Minnesota, but not where Plourde lives. Comcast is the other option at Plourde's house. She chose Velocity to support a local company.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Slashdot: US Army Soldier Pleads Guilty To AT&T and Verizon Hacks

US Army Soldier Pleads Guilty To AT&T and Verizon Hacks Published on February 20, 2025 at 01:31AM Cameron John Wagenius pleaded guilty to hacking AT&T and Verizon and stealing a massive trove of phone records from the companies, according to court records filed on Wednesday. From a report: Wagenius, who was a U.S. Army soldier, pleaded guilty to two counts of "unlawful transfer of confidential phone records information" on an online forum and via an online communications platform. According to a document filed by Wagenius' lawyer, he faces a maximum fine of $250,000 and prison time of up to 10 years for each of the two counts. Wagenius was arrested and indicted last year. In January, U.S. prosecutors confirmed that the charges brought against Wagenius were linked to the indictment of Connor Moucka and John Binns, two alleged hackers whom the U.S. government accused of several data breaches against cloud computing services company Snowflake, which were among the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Slashdot: AT&T Now Lets Customers Lock Down Account To Prevent SIM Swapping Attacks

AT&T Now Lets Customers Lock Down Account To Prevent SIM Swapping Attacks Published on July 02, 2025 at 01:30AM AT&T has launched a new Account Lock feature designed to protect customers from SIM swapping attacks. The security tool, available through the myAT&T app, prevents unauthorized changes to customer accounts including phone number transfers, SIM card changes, billing information updates, device upgrades, and modifications to authorized users. SIM swapping attacks occur when criminals obtain a victim's phone number through social engineering techniques, then intercept messages and calls to access two-factor authentication codes for sensitive accounts. The attacks have become increasingly common in recent years. AT&T began gradually rolling out Account Lock earlier this year, joining T-Mobile, Verizon, and Google Fi, which already offer similar fraud prevention features. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Post a Comment
Read more

Slashdot: Protecting 'Funko' Brand, AI-Powered 'BrandShield' Knocks Itch.io Offline After Questionable Registrar Communications

Protecting 'Funko' Brand, AI-Powered 'BrandShield' Knocks Itch.io Offline After Questionable Registrar Communications Published on December 16, 2024 at 01:04AM Launched in 2013, itch.io lets users host and sell indie video games online — now offering more than 200,000 — as well as other digital content like music and comics. But then someone uploaded a page based on a major videogame title, according to Game Rant. And somehow this provoked a series of overreactions and missteps that eventually knocked all of itch.io offline for several hours... The page was about the first release from game developer 10:10 — their game Funko Fusion, which features characters in the style of Funko's long-running pop-culture bobbleheads. As a major brand, Funko monitors the web with a "brand protection" partner (named BrandShield). Interestingly, BrandShield's SaaS product "leverages AI-driven online brand protection," according to their site, to "detect...
Post a Comment
Read more