Two CenturyLink customers in Santa Fe say they've been without Internet service for more than a week.

After numerous calls and frustrating attempts to get answers from the company's customer service department, they've been told the same thing: The problem is failed equipment at the CenturyLink central office in Santa Fe, and the parts have been ordered.

"It's outrageous," said Steven G. Farber, a Santa Fe attorney who lives off of Botulph Road and Zia Road. "If this were electricity or gas outage, there would be a [lot more action.]"

Equipment failure was the same reason much of downtown Santa Fe lost Internet service for several hours Monday morning, according to a CenturyLink spokeswoman. Service was restored to those customers by 10 a.m. Monday.

Farber, who sometimes works from home, said he lost DSL Internet service from CenturyLink at least six days ago. He called the company every day, first going through the customer service number. He got a recorded message that acknowledged the company knew he was without Internet service and said he would be called when it was restored. Farber called technical services and eventually was routed to someone who told him about the equipment failure.

"I was told service would be restored yesterday evening [Monday night]," Farber said Tuesday. "It wasn't."

Elaine Del Valle, who lives more than half a mile from Farber, also has been without CenturyLink Internet service for at least five days, as has at least one of her neighbors. "It's not just the aggravation and inconvenience of not having Internet, it is that the whole system is so customer-unfriendly," she said. "I'm paying for a service, and not getting it."

Farber and Del Valle both say they were Qwest customers for years, and they never had service problems this bad. Qwest Communications International was bought by CenturyTel last year for $10.6 billion in stocks and renamed CenturyLink. The merger joined the third and fourth largest land-line companies in the United States.

Farber and Del Valle both turned off their modems and then rebooted them to make sure it wasn't their equipment causing the problem.

Farber's been going to his office to check emails and read other online materials that he normally liked to access first thing in the morning at home while having a cup of coffee. Del Valle has been going to a neighbor's house to check her email. "It is very inconvenient," she said.

"I don't have any control whatsoever. If you talk to people [at the company] and they don't like what you say, they disconnect you," she said.

Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.