Saturday, August 20, 2005 - The major telecommunications night-mare at the Capitol has finally been resolved. Qwest Communications finally came out and did their job you ask? No, they did not.

The phone crisis was corrected by none other than the now-defunct Nassau West Telecom of years past. Nassau West Sheriff Kelly Bartram, who used to augment his income with side jobs in telecommunications, volunteered to use his decade-old knowledge of telecommunications to fix the Capitol's telephone service.

This problem started over a month ago, after severe storms hit the Capitol and the greater Benson vicinity. Following three days of heavy thunderstorms, the Capitol telephone no longer functioned properly. For a yet to be determined reason, however, the DSL (high-speed Internet) service was still working fine.

The Capitol advised Qwest Communications of the service troubles and they dispatched a private contractor (not employed by Qwest) for the service call. The elderly contractor informed Nassau West Benson Ambassador Sara Bartram that the problem with the line was in the house, and not Qwest's responsibility.

Sheriff Bartram, who spent in excess of two years in the telecommunications installation field, knew that the service failure was not inside the Capitol. "The storms had not occurred inside the Capitol, yet the problem started immediately following a particularly bad storm we had. I knew the problem had to be outside, regardless of what the (Qwest contractor) said," stated Bartram this afternoon.

Bartram checked every point of the phone system inside the Capitol, as this is where the problem allegedly was, and found no problems. Then he went to the user interface (SNI) outside, where there were also no problems found. Finally, he went to the telephone pole (which IS Qwest's responsibility) and checked the junction box there.

After displacing a large Brown Recluse spider, which he later killed, the Sheriff inspected the box for signs of trouble. None were found. At this point, Bartram decided it would be necessary to circumvent Qwest's installation. Before doing that, he had one final (and much cheaper) idea.

Bartram swapped out the blue/white pair for the orange/white pair at the pole and at the SNI. Voila! Phone service was instantly restored. The blue/white pair somehow became partially disabled. The Sheriff who was, of course, the first to try the phone, was ecstatic when the phone came through loud and clear for the first time in many weeks.

"It's just one of those moments when you want to cry. I was so happy that it worked. Basically, what I did was a double bypass operation, and it worked! Now, I think it's time for the good people at Qwest, with their so-called 'commitment to service,' to commit to reimbursing Nassau West for my time, and their loss of service," Bartram smugly said.

Apparently, the Department of the Treasury thinks that's an excellent idea. According to records furnished by the Treasury, Qwest expects Nassau West to pay them $43 (not including DSL) for phone service, which they say is unacceptable. The Treasury is going to contact Qwest to get a credit to the account and to explain to them how all along it was, indeed, their responsibility to correct the situation, which they clearly did not.

About three weeks ago, the Nassau West Department of Transportation dug up the phone cable going from the telephone pole to the Capitol's north end. The cable, originally buried only about two inches deep, will be reburied about a foot under the surface to protect it from the elements. So far, the trench project is about 75% complete.

The Department of Transportation is planning to finish the trench an rebury the cable early tomorrow. The DOT had scheduled the previous two weekends for this work, however, due to circumstances beyond their control, they were not able to get to it until this weekend.