A tug-of-war between phone companies has left students without dial tones weeks after the Verizon Communications strike ended.

CEI Networks customers are having trouble getting connected because Verizon delayed handing over important customer information, CEI officials said yesterday.

"There's certainly been some serious problems in the transfer of service from Verizon to CEI," CEI attorney Alan Kohler said.

Kohler described the two company's current relationship as "strained" and blamed CEI customers' frustrations on the Verizon holdups.

"The process was unexpectedly slow, inefficient and involved a failure to meet deadlines," he said.

CEI estimates the delays have already caused the company to lose at least 50 local customers. Kohler said some delays remain, but many orders were able to begin processing this week.

"We're hopeful none of this was intentional on Verizon's part to get customers back," Kohler said. "But you start to get suspicious after awhile.

"There's a lot of finger pointing going on — on both sides," he said.

Verizon representatives did not return phone messages this week.

CEI, a division of Conestoga Enterprises, Inc., provides local phone competition by purchasing Verizon's phone service on a wholesale basis and reselling the service directly to customers. The company also sells cable and fast-speed Internet service.

However, before CEI can connect its customers, Verizon has to provide the company with customer information, such as customers' connection status.

"At one point we had no idea who was turned on or not," Kohler said.

Kohler said some established CEI customers also have experienced problems because Verizon technicians disconnected their service.

Numerous CEI customers have been disconnected when Verizon technicians were working on the premises, Kohler said.

At least three customers were also disconnected when Verizon technicians installed second phone lines in CEI customers' apartments, he said. Kohler said the new lines were for both Verizon and CEI customers.

But either way, he said the disconnections were improper.

"It is inappropriate regardless to disconnect a customer — even more inappropriate if to connect one of their customers," Kohler said.