UPDATED July 30th

We had a few questions about the outage on Tuesday evening – and as always, when events such as this occur, we welcome and encourage our Owners and residents to address any questions or concerns with us.

1. Where did this alleged squirrel chewing occur? We were advised by RCN this occurred along the main fiber line, at approximately 5800 North Sheridan.
2. Why did this take so long to repair? Unfortunately with fiber, you can’t just soder the lines back together. They had to replace about 100 feet of these lines and reconnect them at nodes where the fiber connects to other lines.
3. Were other high-rises impacted? Yes – 8 other high-rises on Sheridan lost service.
4. I still do not have phone or internet service? If that is the case, it has nothing to do with this outage. You will need to contact RCN directly at 1-800-RING-RCN, or during business hours try 312-955-2500.
5. Is the squirrel ok? According to RCN, the squirrel “high-tailed it out of there”, when it saw angry RCN technicians on approach. It’s whereabouts and status are unknown at this time.

ORIGINAL POST July 28th

It was reported by RCN, that last night’s Cable/Internet outage was the result of a squirrel chewing through a 72 count fiber main line. This brought down service to several high rises and residences within about a 5 block radius, and as you can imagine took some time to adequately repair.

We’ve been told some residents have had lingering issues with phone and internet service today. For internet, one suggestion we can make is to unplug your modems and routers for about 60 seconds, then plug them back in. This should reset them. However, for any continued individual problems you should contact RCN directly. During business hours the best number to use is 312-955-2500. However, for anytime you can use 1-800-RING-RCN.

If you do not get the help you need, or if RCN is not successfully addressing a malfunction or other problems, please report that to us at parktowercondo-mgmt@habitat.com. We will do our best to escalate any matter you cannot get resolved through their regular customer service.

We’ve already gotten a couple excellent questions, so let me address them.

First, several residents have mentioned other recent internet outages and a variety of problems they are personally experiencing. These appear to us to be isolated. We are aware of no recent significant building wide or neighborhood outages. They may be isolated to a particular unit or tier. For that reason, it is extremely important all residents remember to always first contact RCN directly. Their system tracks problems being reported, and will alert their team to patterns such as tier outages. They then coordinate with our team to get access to all the units on that tier so the problem can be isolated and resolved. SO ALWAYS CALL RCN FIRST!

Second, we are aware our phones were down due to the outage. The only ‘landlines’ we have are associated with the elevators. So, when the internet goes down, the front desk and office cannot take calls. You should still be able to leave a voicemail as the server maintaining our messages is not onsite, so please do so. If possible, we will be actively monitoring messages. So, how should guests be admitted? In situations such as this, you should come down to the lobby to admit your guest. We are sorry about the inconvenience, but even when we had an intercom, that would malfunction several times a year. Also, what about emergencies? What if you have a fire? Consistent with the building’s emergency plan, the first call you should make is to 911 for such an event, and then you should leave your unit. You can come down to the lobby and report the event and that you’ve contacted 911. However, you should always be contacting 911 and only contacting us if you are able. Once you reach the lobby, the staff can also activate the panic button, which relies on a separate communication line to alert the authorities.

Our phone network does rely on the internet, so during an event or situation that needs our attention, our staff would need to be alerted in person. For example, for leaking or a flood event, come down to the lobby and our front desk can alert the staff via our radios. We are all reliant on the internet, but with our radio network and the panic buttons, we do have the ability to respond to emergencies. AND the staff is trained that it is ok to use their cell phones in the event of emergencies when necessary. In fact, during the outage yesterday, I was communicating regularly with 6 members of our staff via cell phone and text making sure everyone was coordinating and addressing the event as best we could.

For more about how to respond in the event of an emergency, you can review our Resident Emergency Plan here: Resident Emergency Procedures 03.2021

Also, when you see a NOTICE for our Emergency Procedure Town Hall Meetings, please plan to attend if you are able!