Internet out for some in Cape Coral until 2023

Three weeks since Hurricane Ian destroyed parts of Southwest Florida and some people are still without internet service.

In fact, so many people are without service that viewers have gotten in touch with WINK News to try and find out what’s going on.

Some people in Cape Coral shouldn’t expect to get service back until some point in the first quarter of 2023.

Wednesday night Comcast and CenturyLink both gave Cape Coral an update on when residents in the city will get service again.

Starting with Comcast, and remember they said they had extensive damage to their network. They said they have restored service to about 95% of businesses and residents in Cape Coral, but the other 5%…

“Anybody that’s still out, they had particularly major damage in their area. And we are working as soon as we can to get those services backed up,” a representative from Comcast said.

The representative didn’t mention how soon that would be.

But, shifting to the outlook for CenturyLink customers, it’s a little different.

“It’s about 22,000 customers in Cape Coral. You know, about 16,000 are using service, we got about 6,600 not using service,” a representative from CenturyLink said.

As for the timeline, “The level of damage is significant. And so I do anticipate that last customer likely to come up somewhere that first quarter, early quarter, I think that rescue is real,” the CenturyLink representative said.

In other words, the representative is saying service could be out until the first part of 2023.

The mayor of Cape Coral, John Gunter, gave some perspective on the topic.

“When I heard that CenturyLink said that it could be up to the first quarter, that was a little surprising to me. You know, I know that a lot of people depend on internet, whether they’re working at home. So that could be an element that some residents can’t do without,” Gunter said.

WINK News did ask the mayor if there is anything the city can do to push these companies to get the services up faster. But he said the city has no control over that and that really the city is at their mercy.