CHAMPAIGN — Phone service was restored Friday afternoon for hundreds of i3 Broadband business and residential customers in the Champaign-Urbana area following a several-day outage, the company said.
The company said Friday that its phone service in the area was lost Tuesday evening.
“We are aware that some i3 Broadband customers in the Champaign-Urbana area are experiencing an interruption of their voice services due to a loss of connectivity to the public telephone provider network,” the company said earlier Friday.
“As we work expeditiously to solve this issue with our vendor, we are moving all impacted customers to a backup platform at this time to restore their service,” the company said in an emailed response to questions. “Customers with homes and businesses in the area received an email update yesterday.”
The outage affected about 450 i3 Broadband phone customers in the Champaign-Urbana area, the company said.
Ron Bailey, owner of Blossom Basket Florist at 1002 N. Cunningham Ave, U, said Friday his i3 Broadband phone service had been lost three days ago.
Some customers came to Blossom Basket to place orders in person, but the loss of phone service had already cost thousands of dollars in lost business, he said.
“Eighty percent of our business is on the phone,” Bailey said.
Phone customers who didn’t receive an update Thursday and want to speak to someone about their outage are being asked to send an email to support@i3broadband.com, the company said.
