Some southeast Calgary residents left without phone service for nearly a week after vandalism

Some Ogden residents are frustrated and concerned after having their Telus landlines out for six days and counting.

“I’m frustrated and I’m a little scared for my mom,” Marnie Parsons told CityNews.

She is concerned for her elderly mother, who’s home phone stopped working last Friday without any warning.

“I couldn’t obviously get through on her phone — phoning her number would give a busy tone and then it would go dead,” Parsons explained.

Her mother, like many in the neighbourhood, is a senior and relies solely on her landline as her connection to the outside world.

After hours of getting a busy signal before getting cut off, Parsons went online and tried to troubleshoot.

“I couldn’t get the AI to talk to me and tell me what was going on,” she recalled. “There was nothing on mom’s account that said there was any problem with her phone.

“There was nothing on the Telus website.”

Steve Cisecki also lives in the neighbourhood, and says it’s a safety concern, and completely unacceptable.

“Some of these senior citizens, if they have to phone 911 they can’t, because the phones are dead,” he said.

Cisecki says the lack of transparency from the company is a problem.

“Telus tells us there’s a problem and they’re working on it — but we don’t know what it is,” he said.

In a statement to CityNews, Telus says it had equipment in the area compromised “in an act of vandalism.”

“Vandals cut and stole a significant amount of cables… Causing extensive damage and disrupting home phone services to some customers in the community,” the telecommunications company said.

Telus acknowledged the inconvenience to Ogden residents and says it is working with police to investigate the incident.

It adds that crews are working around the clock, but there’s no estimated time for restoration.