A prolonged Bell Canada outage has left a legion branch and local residents on a Bridgetown, N.S., street without internet for 10 days.

Ellen Haley works at the legion on Jeffrey Street in the Annapolis County community. She said every Bell customer on the street lost service on May 14.

Without internet access, the legion can’t operate its debit machines, televisions or video lottery terminals.

“We have no way of making any money,” she said. “We’re going to lose customers.”

Haley said she has repeatedly called Bell customer support since the outage began, only to receive a string of unfulfilled timelines.

Initially, she was told a technician would arrive on May 15. When that deadline passed, she was told service would be restored after the Victoria Day long weekend.

“Tuesday I called back again, [and they] told me it would be repaired by 8 p.m. that night. Same thing Wednesday, same thing Thursday,” Haley said. “And, again, we don’t have it. No one’s actually told us what’s going on.”

She added that residents heard a rumour that a utility box down the street had been damaged.

In an emailed statement Saturday evening, Bell confirmed the outage was caused by damage to “local network infrastructure — specifically cables being pulled from a connection point.”

The company said the outage affected about 20 customers and service was expected to be restored by the end of the day.

‘Essential service’

Alva Bent, who also lives on Jeffrey Street, said the lack of internet has left her feeling isolated and bored. Living alone, she hasn’t even been able to access online banking to pay her power bill.

“The internet today is an essential service. It runs everything,” Bent told CBC News on Saturday. “They’ve got us wrapped around their finger.”

Bent said she contacted Bell repair on Friday and was told to have patience.

“I said, ‘It’s been nine days!'” Bent said. “I have called them two or three times a day. I have bugged the devil out of them. And still nothing.”

In a followup email Saturday night, Bell said service had been restored to 11 customers, and the remaining ones would be reconnected Sunday.

But when contacted Sunday morning, Haley said the legion was still without a connection.

“We just feel that we’re kind of second class or something,” Haley said. “The legion can’t keep losing money and those other people shouldn’t have to go without internet for that long.”

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