Newhouse News Service

NEW ORLEANS – More than nine months after Hurricane Katrina swept through, the telephones still don’t ring in big swaths of this city. Getting by without phones or Internet service is an ongoing struggle for individuals and businesses alike.

Although telephone service has been largely restored in the metro area overall, it still hasn’t penetrated the hard-hit areas of eastern New Orleans, St. Bernard Parish and patches of the Lakeview neighborhood.

Traditional BellSouth telephone service has been restored in 86.6 percent of Orleans Parish, 96.4 percent of Plaquemines Parish and 18.2 percent of St. Bernard Parish, said Merlin Villar, a spokesman for the company.

Cox Communications says it has restored its telephone, cable television and Internet services to “a significant portion” of its footprint. But the company wouldn’t give specific numbers.

Meanwhile, business owners still waiting for phone service are creating makeshift telecommunications systems with cellular phones, satellite links and voicemail.

At Terranova Brothers Superette, the lack of phone lines prevents customers from paying for purchases with ATM or credit cards.

The Orleans Parish district attorney’s office is getting by on three dozen cellular telephones.

Common Ground, a volunteer group gutting and repairing houses in the Lower 9th Ward, has a satellite link on its computers to offer Internet access to volunteers and returning residents.

And an eastern New Orleans podiatrist is relying on pagers and text messages to set up patient appointments.

Cell service unreliable

Even cellular phones are no guarantee of service.

“I carry two cell phones to make sure I have one that works,” said Walter Leger, a St. Bernard Parish lawyer and member of the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

Many of the neighborhoods still without phone service have tricky challenges.

Cox, for example, can offer its services only in areas where Entergy has restored commercial electric power. And having electricity restored to houses in an area doesn’t necessarily mean commercial power has been restored, Cox spokesman Brad Grundmeyer said. Fiber-optic networks require commercial electric power to continually send the signal along the line, he said.

Cox is also struggling to preserve replacement equipment it installed post-Katrina. The company has replaced many pedestals, those green boxes about the size of an ice chest between the sidewalk and the street. In neighborhoods where wiring runs underground, the pedestals connect four to six houses to the cable line.

In the course of reconstruction, the units often get hauled away, ripped up or otherwise mangled, Grundmeyer said. In December, 81 Cox pedestals were ripped out in a single day in Jefferson Parish, he said.

BellSouth also is working to get phone customers back online. Darrell Cooper, a senior network vice president, said in May that some 130,000 customer lines are still down. Katrina rebuilding is going to be a multiyear effort, but it will be an opportunity to provide higher-end services, he said.

BellSouth is replacing all underground copper wiring with fiber-optic cable, and elevating equipment in places that flooded. The company also must replace equipment ruined after weeks without electrical power. The company estimates its restoration cost at more than $700 million, not including lost revenue.

For people in areas where land-line service isn’t available, there are some new options. BellSouth has launched a wireless broadband service.

“We have put up several antennas in the area and currently can cover 80 percent of Orleans Parish,” Villar said. The company also has a wireless service that uses a modem plugged into an electrical outlet and mimics regular phone service.

Dr. Denardo Dunham is trying to revive his podiatry practice without telephone service. Since reopening his office three months ago, he has called BellSouth at least once a week to find out when his service will be restored.

The task of setting patient appointments has evolved into an intricate tango.

“We’re kind of just making it happen,” Dunham said. Patients can leave messages at the regular office phone number, which is forwarded to a voicemail system that pages Dunham on his cell phone. He retrieves the message and gives it to the receptionist, who returns the call and sets the date in the appointment book.

When the receptionist isn’t in the office, Dunham sends her a text message to contact the patient. Dunham also has an online booking system that lets patients make their own appointments. Since there is no Internet access at the office, the receptionist takes the appointment book home, where she has Internet service, makes entries and then brings the book back to the office.

“It works, but it’s not the most convenient,” Dunham said.

Troubles with land lines have worked to the advantage of at least one company.

Joe Laura, president of Superior Wireless, said businesses have been clamoring for the wireless Internet service he offers. The system uses microwave frequencies to relay signals from a series of antennas mounted atop buildings. It’s the type of service once offered only in rural areas where telephone and cable company service didn’t reach, Laura said.

These days, that description applies to parts of the New Orleans area as well.

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