Phone outage being repaired

Verizon technicians are working to restore phone service to businesses and residential customers in Penn Hills and Wilkinsburg after several cables were severed Monday morning.

While Verizon spokesman Lee Gierczynski could not pinpoint on Tuesday how many customers are affected, he said the company has received about 700 trouble reports.

Gierczynski said the cables were severed by workmen using an auger while installing a pole for a traffic signal at the intersection of Robinson Boulevard and Laketon Road.

Dick Skrinjar, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, said Verizon did not inform Swank Construction Co., of New Kensington and Elizabeth, the contractor on the job, that any telephone lines were in the area the company was digging.

"Verizon didn't mark the utility lines (on the pavement)," Skrinjar said.

Service is expected to be restored by the end of the week, Gierczynski said. He said it is taking so long because of the complexity of the cables -- each contains 2,500 individual phone lines that must be matched.

Most of the businesses affected are along Frankstown Road, he said.

Clarence Frank, owner of Penn Hills Trophy in the Ritzland Plaza, has had no phone service since Monday. He is concerned not only about his business, which relies heavily on phone orders, but also the fact that his wife is in a nursing home and there may be some need to contact him.

"They put us on a temporary phone mailbox, which means they route the incoming phone calls to another number, where we can retrieve them," Frank said.

In the meantime, the existing line is connected both to his business and his home across Frankstown Road in the Mission Crest housing plan. And right now, he has no way to make an outgoing phone call.

"I even thought of going and getting a cell phone," Frank said. "But we have enough phone bills already."

Swanson's Pharmacy in the 9900 block of Frankstown Road has about 10 phone lines in all, and only two of those are affected, one of them being an old fax line that someone will occasionally try to reactivate.

"Right now, they go on and off, but somebody from Verizon told us (Tuesday) that it should be fixed in 24 hours," said Debbie Wallace, a notary public at Swanson's.

But next door, mechanic Jim Kozub, owner of Kozub's Tune-Up Center, "was on the pay phone outside his garage all day Monday" calling Verizon to find out what the problem might be, Wallace added.

Customers trying to make an appointment at Bobby J.'s Hair Fashion Design, in the 9700 block of Frankstown Road could only get through on two of six lines, and Montz Pizza, at the intersection of Frankstown and Robinson Boulevard, had a dead phone line Monday morning, although phone service has since resumed, said owner Lamont Smith.

"It's a big concern, because so much of our business is delivery," Smith said.

Gierczynski said customers can have their phone service forwarded to a cell phone by contacting customer service.

Technicians also are going door to door to help customers.