BUSTI — The prolonged loss of internet connection for several residents in the town of Busti has highlighted the difficulties of providing high-speed connectivity for those living in rural areas of New York.

Darlene and Brian McIntyre say they were just one of many in the area of Pine Ridge Road in Busti who had been without internet for more than three weeks. The pair have service through Windstream, and were told by a representative that regaining the connection had been problematic.

“There’s quite a few people up here that don’t have anything,” Darlene McIntyre said earlier this week. “I’m not blaming Windstream or anything. We kind of live out here in the middle of the country. We’re used to not having anything.”

In fact, the McIntyres — who have lived in Busti for more than four decades — have had to keep their landline telephone due to a lack of quality cellular service. They say cellphone “dead zones” have made staying in touch with friends and family difficult.

Sherry Bjork, who lives near the McIntyres, said the lack of internet hampered efforts by her children to do last-minute homework during the school year.

“It has created some difficulties,” Bjork said. “My biggest concern has been about school work.”

According to a Windstream spokesman, the outage was due to an “an intermittent issue that affected the performance of the network node serving broadband customers” in the Busti area.

“Because the issue was intermittent from the network side, it was difficult to determine the cause and make repairs, and unfortunately that resulted in a prolonged period of degraded service,” the spokesman said.

Windstream said engineers working with local field operators determined there was a problem with one of the trunks feeding the broadband network node that serves the Wing Road area.

“The Network Operations Center shut down that trunk and restored service,” the spokesman said. “We apologize for any inconvenience our customers experienced.”

The need to provide high-speed internet to New Yorkers was highlighted by Gov. Andrew Cuomo as part of his “New NY Broadband” program introduced in 2015. More than $341 million was provided in public/private funding to allow access to the internet.

Cuomo said the New NY Broadband program helped upgrade 2.42 million locations statewide.

“Access to high-speed internet is critical as New York works to deliver the resources needed for industries to thrive and businesses to remain competitive in the 21st century global economy,” Cuomo said. “This cutting-edge program is advancing our vision to connect communities, empower entrepreneurs and residents, and support advanced technological innovation. Projects achieved through the New NY Broadband Program are a major step forward in creating the most robust broadband infrastructure network in the nation, while ensuring that reliable, high-speed internet is available to all New Yorkers.”

In the latest round of funding, Windstream received $3.37 million in state grants to address unserved territories. In all, the funding was expected to help 751 locations in Windstream’s Western New York service area, the governor’s office said.