Please see this new link to the photos of the Feb 1, 2008 trip to Mt Fanny.

On Thursday at 8:13AM we lost power to the Mt Harris wireless site.  This site is used by EONI to provide service to our wireless customers in Elgin.  EONI has installed expanded battery systems at this site due to previous problems with extended power outages and the difficulty of accessing this mountain top site in winter weather.

This Mt Harris site also serves several major commercial radio companies as well.  Oregon Trail Electric said they reset the breaker Thursday, however this problem of the power outage continues.   Oregon Trail Electric has notified a radio station they plan to have a snow cat trip to inspect the power system this morning.  They estimated they would begin the trip about 10:30AM. 

EONI wireless service to Elgin is still in service due to the battery system we have in place.  EONI has the ability to monitor the utility and battery status remotely and our systems.  Our systems report the batteries may run out about 3PM today.  We may get more or less time from our batteries.  As soon as stable utility power is present our systems will switch back to utility power and begin the slow process (2-3 days) of recharging the series of batteries.

Hopefully Elgin wireless customer will see no outage and the utility power will be restored before our batteries are exhausted.

February 8, 2008

To: EONI Wireless Customers in Cove

Re: Status and credit for interrupted service

Beginning Saturday, January 26, 2008 EONI experienced a loss of our wireless Internet service to Cove.  Despite a number of interventions and network changes made in La Grande, we were unable to restore the service.  We suspected that the extreme winter conditions had caused either a large accumulation of ice or an equipment failure at the facilities on Mount Fanny..

The severity of the weather prevented a visit to Mount Fanny until Friday, February 1.
Our technicians found that the weather had caused significant equipment damage.  Fortunately, they were able to repair our facilities on this visit and service was restored by late that afternoon.  
Our Cove customers affected by this outage will receive a $10.50 credit to their accounts.  We thank you for your patience and support during this time.  If you have other questions, please let us know.  You can call our office at 962-7873 or email us at answers@eoni.com.  Thank you.

We have posted pictures and updates on our news and announcement page if you are interested in more details:
http://news.eoni.com/

Kelly Mutch, President
Jeff Crews, VP & Chief Technical Officer

To: EONI Wireless Customers in North Powder

This is a brief update on the situation with EONI's wireless Internet service for the North Powder area.  The service remains unstable.  The biggest issue affecting repairs remains the weather conditions.  EONI technicians made a trip up to Mt. Fanny last week and due to constraints of daylight, travel conditions and the weather on top of the mountain, their work was severely limited.  Safety while working in the austere environment there remains the first consideration. 

EONI does have other ongoing efforts trying to restore the service to a fully operational status.  We have some work to do in North Powder at the water tower that we will try to accomplish as soon as we can.  If another trip to Mt. Fanny is required, we will attempt that as well.  Once again, the weather must cooperate for this work to be done.  This winter has presented the most challenging conditions that we have had to face - ever. 

 
We can offer no definitive timeline for the service to be restored, but we want you to know that we have not given up and we are still working towards a resolution. We hope you will be patient with us.  We know that other choices for broadband service there are limited and can be more expensive.  However, if you cannot wait for us to finish restoring our wireless service, you may cancel your EONI wireless contract.  Should you choose to cancel, we need to have the opportunity to retrieve our equipment, including the inside wireless power supply and outside radio with antenna.  If you decide to hang in there while we continue working on this issue, billing for the account remains suspended and EONI will provide free complimentary dialup Internet access while we resolve the problem. 

If you have other questions, please let us know.  You can call our office at 962-7873 or email us at answers@eoni.com.  We will try to provide updates periodically via email and on our web site (http://home.eoni.com).  While we may not be the best at providing updates, as a small company we try to work on problems rather than talk about them.  We appreciate your ongoing patience and support.  Thank you.

Kelly Mutch, President
Jeff Crews, VP & Chief Technical Officer