A construction crew working in East Vancouver accidentally cut internet service to about 10,000 Telus customers Thursday by driving rebar into an underground wire duct.
The crew, which was not working for Telus, severed three cables and damaged a fourth while working at a site on Commercial Drive and Kingsway. Telus says at least 2,400 individual wires were cut, each of which has to be manually reconnected on two sides.
But spokesman Shawn Hall said technicians were able to restore service to "most customers" within an hour of the outage using backup lines in the area.
"We've invested in installing redundant infrastructure so when something like this happens we can [reroute] service," Hall said.
Thousands were still without service on Friday night, though Hall said that number was cut in half by morning. The majority of affected customers were internet and Optik TV users. A few dozen businesses were also affected.
One of the severed cables was repaired overnight while two more are expected to be restored by Friday evening. The final cable is expected to be restored on Sunday.
"We're really pulling out all the stops to restore service as quickly as we can," Hall said. "We've got multiple crews down there… please be patient with us."
The company will be conducting a review of the outage once all service has been restored. Hall thanked all the employees and technicians who worked overnight and throughout Canada Day to restore power.
The company was also victim to cable thefts Thursday in Surrey, B.C., affecting about 150 customers.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's St. John Alexander
