Demand forces CentraCom to dial

back on free Internet offers

By Robert Green

Staff writer

4-9-2020

FAIRVEW—CentraCom says has been overwhelmed by response to its offer to provide Sanpete County students with free Internet service until May 31.

In fact, the company received over 1,000 calls about the promotion, said human resource manager Casey Cox.

CentraCom made the offer in response to the new coronavirus pandemic, which caused all schools to dismiss physical classes and required students to do schoolwork online classes at home.

The response was so overwhelming, however, that technicians are scheduled out 2-3 weeks to make new connections, Cox said. And so CentraCom issued a directive that it will not take new orders for free student access or upgrades until the backlog of connections are complete.

Cox said everyone who previously called and signed up for the free service will be taken care of.

But anyone calling up now for the free service will get a recorded message, “Due to the extremely high response of our school dismissal internet promotion and backlog of operations, we are suspending the promotion indefinitely.”

“We wanted to do our part to help us much as we could,” Cox said. “The offer was very popular, but the response completely overwhelmed our system.”

Complicating matters are safety concerns of sending technicians out into the community without masks, Cox said. “We can’t find any N95 masks, and we are thinking about holding our technicians back for a while.”