Some customers said callers had gotten busy signals

By Steve Lathrop

Albany Democrat-Herald

John Dalen would just like to know what's going on. He would also like to receive the calls that are being made to his phone.

For the last few days Dalen, who lives in Albany, has been hearing from people who had called him on the phone but couldn't get through because there was a constant busy signal.

He has not been alone. Other customers in Albany and Corvallis have had the same problem.

Linda Sutton of Albany said friends told her they had been trying to reach her for several days but could only get the busy signal.

It turns out that the problem affected only Qwest customers trying to call Comcast telephone customers.

Dalen said calls out were fine and calls between Comcast customers seemed to be working, but those with Qwest service got the busy signal.

Qwest spokesman Bob Gravely said the problem has been resolved on the Qwest end.

"I can officially say that there were no problems with Qwest functions," said Gravely. "As of this morning the customers have been able to place their calls."

Gravely said there were some brief disruptions again because of some testing but it was essentially fixed.

"It went on for several days," said Dalen. "Comcast told us they were replacing wires here in town and it may take 10 days to fix. They said the problem was with Qwest."

Gravely said the problem did not originate with his Qwest.

The Democrat-Herald tried to reach Comcast this morning, but calls were not returned in time for this report.