Damage to the Island's phone network was more extensive than initial estimates, Bermuda Telephone Company executives said yesterday.

BTC corporate communications manager Ona Fletcher said the company was still receiving repair requests from customers, a week after the storm wrecked phone and power lines.

Fortunately, no major telephone equipment sustained damage and repairs were only on customers' phone lines, said Ms Fletcher.

"What has become evident, as the storm clean up progressed, is that the localised damage suffered by many customers has been much more widespread than was initially reported. It's been overtime non-stop since the storm.''

The crunch to repair lines made company executives "re-deploy" staff, halting new phone line installations for two weeks.

"We need to put a lot of attention on the storm related faults," Ms Fletcher said.

But she could not say when the repairs will be completed.

"It's hard to say at this point,'' she said. ''When the storm first struck, and we were working, we established - based on the information that we had - it would be about three days.

"But now, it's impossible to say when. We're working to get through as many repairs as we can. As soon as we know, we will be out there to let the public know.

"We knew from early on there was no problem with connectivity. It's storm-related, wires going down for the most part."

Ms Fletcher told The Royal Gazette: "There are some extra personnel that were brought in to answer phones as well."