Steven Freund says he’s been without landline service for a solid month now.

“Dec. 12, I got up, picked up the phone to make a phone call, and there wasn’t anything,” he recalls.

Wayne McCuen’s father, Gerald, lost his landline service on Dec. 17 — his 90th birthday.

RELATED: Copper thieves target landline phones in the metro
 
“My father has a defibrillator, and that ran through the phone line.,” he notes.

St. Louis Park Apartment manager Liz Elkholm is also not happy. “It’s beyond frustration,” she notes. “They’re a communication company. There’s no communication with these people.”

All three are CenturyLink Customers, with landlines that have gone silent.  

“It’s not acceptable,” declares John Tuma, a member of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC), which regulates landline phone carriers.

He says the PUC has documented nearly eighty CenturyLink outage complaints in December.

“We don’t have the authority to fine,” Tuma says. “Now, if they violate state service quality orders, the Attorney General can bring an action against them. I understand they’re investigating that right now.”

CenturyLink blames the outages on copper theft.

RELATED: Phone carriers say copper theft is behind lack of landline service for customers in Twin Cities

In a statement to 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS, the Louisiana-based carrier says the extended outage is due to multiple, repeated cases of copper theft in the Twin Cities.

The statement said, in part, “These crimes have severely impacted our ability to restore service due to the extensive damage caused during the theft… Crews are working as quickly as possible to restore service. We recognize the inconvenience this causes and appreciate our customer’s patience.”  

An order issued by the PUC in 2024 notes that, “the Department of Commerce suggests that CenturyLink’s declining performance was caused by its decision to lay off some of its Minnesota field technicians, resulting in an increased workload assigned to each of the remaining technicians since 2021.”

The PUC says in recent years, the carrier has cut its field crew workforce in half.

“They have really knocked, ratcheted down the folks that are working on this service quality stuff,” Tuma notes. “The workers in the field, linemen as we know them.”

Under state law, phone companies are required to fix problems quickly, with the goal of 24 hours.

Non-compliance can mean fines imposed by the Attorney General’s Office.

The PUC could also pull CenturyLink’s Minnesota operating certificate.

“That is a draconian step we could take, but I don’t know if that helps everybody, knocking everybody off their phone system,” Tuma explains. “It would knock everybody off.”

He says he believes the company is simply overwhelmed by the rise in copper thefts and a shortage of repair crews.

The PUC has a compliance order in place — and CenturyLink is to report on the status of repairs by mid-March.

Meanwhile — McCuen says he’s found another carrier for his father and has dropped service with CenturyLink.

The family has also installed a doctor-approved defibrillator monitor that operates via Wi-Fi.

“All we had to do was to make sure he was okay,” McCuen explains. “He constantly was looking to get ahold of us if there’s any issues. He has trouble walking. Our only choice was to switch.”