Spectrum Internet outages are causing headaches for Upstate businesses

GREER, SC (WSPA) – Michelle Taylor is the CEO of a small marketing agency in Greer called Taylor Brand Consulting. With a workforce of 16 employees, it does not have the deep pockets that other larger companies have to keep their business afloat in the event of unforeseen circumstances.

“We lost internet Friday morning when Helene hit, and it wasn't until last Wednesday that we got it back,” Taylor said, referring to Hurricane Helene, which knocked out power to millions of Caroline residents last month.

Taylor said she couldn't run her business without internet access, and that's because she couldn't accept credit card payments.

“Everything we do is 100% digital,” Taylor said. “We had deadlines, we had deals that were really contractually obligated, we had no idea how we would be able to deliver them or when we would be able to do it.”

OUTAGE STATUS: Outage dashboard for Spectrum Hurricane Helene

Taylor said her team sat outside gas station parking lots and knocked on coffee shop doors for more than a week, trying to get online until their internet connection was restored.

“Our clients in California, Nevada and New York still had campaigns running, they still had deadlines to meet and they still needed their marketing campaigns,” Taylor said.

Taylor's agency managed to weather the aftermath of Helene without losing clients, but now she said she is considering giving up her internet service provider, Spectrum.

“There was no communication on the Spectrum side. There was no estimated recovery time,” Taylor said. “No one could have predicted what happened to Helene, except for this type of communication; If I didn’t communicate with my customers and they didn’t receive their service as expected, our doors would be closed within a week.”

Taylor explained that she was unable to speak to a Spectrum human support specialist about her frustrations.

“If you go to the default map; You enter your zip code and log in to your account. It says, “You are currently in an outage, there is currently no estimated time for recovery,” and because there is an outage, you are not eligible for customer support,” Taylor said. “So since there's an outage, you can't get support, which doesn't make any sense to me at all. That’s why I haven’t been able to get anyone on the phone at all.”

7NEWS reached out to Spectrum for comment on the delayed restoration times and we received this response from Patti Brakie Michel, director of regional communications for the Mid-South region:

“We continue to make progress in our recovery from the devastating impacts of Hurricane Helene. We repair over 300 miles of network and more than 2,500 damaged locations. Additionally, additional damage is noted as other organizations work to restore poles, lines and roads and clear debris, and Spectrum crews respond and make necessary repairs. Restoring connectivity to emergency services, government and public safety sites, and telecommunications infrastructure is a top priority.

At the height of the storm, Spectrum in South Carolina had 395,000 customers offline. To date, we have restored service to nearly 80% of affected customers. In total, those affected were in more than 40 districts. 32 of those counties are fully recovered. We are focusing on the areas with the highest number of affected customers and where power has been restored, including Greenville and Spartanburg. We continue to bring in additional teams from other regions to expedite repairs. More customers are experiencing service restoration every day, and we expect the restoration to be complete at all accessible locations with power restored by October 16th. We have heard from our customers and will provide more timely updates and country-specific restoration details until services are restored. We value our customers' feedback and their patience. For updates, customers should visit Hurricane Helene.”

Taylor said she is now offering her office space to businesses in her community for use while they wait for their internet service to be restored. For more information, click or tap here.

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