Last Tuesday Internet and Telephone outage a safety risk

Last Tuesday Internet and Telephone outage a safety risk

There is a lack of trustworthiness for the safety of people in the Pontiac according to the MRC Pontiac who said this in a press release issued yesterday following the outage of telephone, Internet and television services on Tuesday in the MRC Pontiac. This is the 5th large outage in nine years, despite pressure by the MRC with Bell and the CRTC to ensure a redundancy of the telephone network is in place in the Pontiac.

Warden Durocher is furious. Saying that the security of the residents is at stake; he understands that the installation of an emergency line is expensive, but how much is the life of a human being worth?

Service providers have stepped up efforts to restore service as quickly as possible. However, in some areas, the failure persisted until the wee hours of Wednesday morning.

The incident occurred at approximately 12:45 pm yesterday near Highway 148 east of Fort-Coulonge. The citizens of the municipalities of Mansfield-et-Pontefract, Fort-Coulonge, Waltham, Isle-aux-Allumettes, Chichester, Sheenboro in the Pontiac and Petawawa, Pembroke and Renfrew, Cobden in Ontario were all affected by the outage.

Pontiac MRC Public and Civil Safety Coordinator Julien Gagnon immediately warned the fire departments of each municipality. According to Mr. Gagnon, “the operational frequency in connection with the fire distribution center located in the MRC des Collines was still operational.”