Cable service has been restored to about 10,000 customers in Maui since the wildfires left more than 25,000 subs without service starting August 9.

That is according to the Federal Communicatios Commission’s latest tally drawn from network outage data provided by communications providers using the its Disaster Information Report System-Lite (DIRSLite). That system collects more “situation-specific” data from communications providers.

The FCC said that at last report, 14,494 subscribers were without phone, TV, internet or a combination of those services.

No TV stations reported being out of service as of Aug. 18.

On the wireless internet front, cell service has made a big comeback on the devastated island, from hundreds of sites out of service for the first four days of the fires (August 9-12) to only 10% out as of August 18.

The FCC has granted various special temporary authorities to communications companies to aid in the service restoration. Those include granting T-Mobile use of the 6- and 11-GHz bands at four microwave backhaul sites and giving AT&T permission to use those frequencies for six such sites.

The Maui wildfires were reportedly among the deadliest in the nation in over a hundred years.

"We have been issuing daily public communications status reports that track the restoration progress, with 17 out of 21 cell sites now restored, the Maui 911 call center now functional and broadcasters continuing to operate and share important community updates and news," FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said Friday. "Also, over 10,000 cable and wireline subscribers have had service restored, but more work remains. We will continue to work closely with local, state, and federal partners as families and residents all over the island begin to rebuild and recover from these devastating wildfires.”

The FCC Homeland Security Bureau's preliminary investigation of Hawaii's accidental release of a ballistic missile alert found that the state did not have a plan for what to do if a false alarm was issued, or a plan to correct a false alarm.

The FCC bureau, in a report at the commission's Jan. 30 public meeting, said the alert was issued due to a miscommunication between the night shift and day shift of Hawaii's emergency management agency, exacerbated by a failure to quickly communicate that the alert was sent in error. A warning official said he mistook a drill for the real thing, though the FCC said it was unclear whether that was the case or whether it was inadvertently sent despite knowing it was a drill.

Related: FCC Investigating Missile False Alarm

While human error was the cause, the bureau also found that the software used to send the alert did not differentiate between a test and a live alarm, and allowed both to be triggered with the same credentials, with pre-prepared templates making it easy to launch the alert without having to sufficiently focus on the content.

FCC chair Ajit Pai, who said the only thing triggered in Hawaii was panic and outrage, both justified. He said he was most troubled by the state's failure to have proper safeguards to prevent human error from causing such a false alarm and that no plan was in place for dealing with one. He said that should be a lesson to all states to have both.

The commissioners were in agreement that changes were necessary, though commissioner Michael O'Rielly emphasized that communications providers did nothing wrong, pointing out that carriers got the message out, false or not, which was their role, and that the issue was with emergency officials and processes.

Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel emphasized that time is of the essence, and new and better practices for all stakeholders need to be put in place ASAP. She also invoked the current nuclear angst stemming from the North Korea threat and war of words between North Korea and the U.S., saying that residents of Hawaii, “like all of us, are aware of new vulnerabilities in the Pacific.”

In addition to the Hawaii report, the FCC meeting included a vote on a related issue: The commissioners unanimously approved an item to better geo-target wireless emergency alerts as part of the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system. "Recent events in California and Hawaii remind us of the urgency of improving WEA," commissioner Brendan Carr said.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, is among those in Congress calling for it to investigate the false alarm text alert that warned Hawaiians over the weekend of an incoming missile strike, claiming not to be a test.

FCC chair Ajit Pai has already launched an investigation, while signaling that the issue was the state's failure to have protections against such an error.

"Congress must investigate the false ballistic missile alarm in Hawaii. An unforgivable false alarm that took 38 minutes to correct," Schiff Tweeted.

Pai was clearly on the same page. "Federal, state, and local officials throughout the country need to work together to identify any vulnerabilities to false alerts and do what’s necessary to fix them.," he said. "We also must ensure that corrections are issued immediately in the event that a false alert does go out.”

There were online reports of children being placed in storm drains for shelter and residents ducking, covering and crying. There was also footage of people running down the street that evoked 1950's movies about irradiated insects and undersea creatures, but it was clearly no laughing matter. With the tensions high between the U.S. and North Korea over the latter's nuclear program, the false alarm clearly had the frightening ring (make that a claxon) of truth to many.

Charter Communications, nearly a year after closing its purchase of Time Warner Cable, is nearing the finish line in its system-wide transition to the Spectrum brand, rolling out the moniker in Charlotte, N.C., and Upstate N.Y. this month.

Charter completed its $80 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable in May, 2016. Shortly after the company started rolling out its new brand – Charter Spectrum – in southern California and Texas in September and in New York City, Lincoln, Neb., and all former Bright House Networks markets in November.

The third phase of the transition began in January with the Midwest (Ohio, including Akron, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus), Kentucky (including Lexington and Louisville), Wisconsin (including Green Bay and Milwaukee), Kansas City, Erie (Pa.) and some smaller systems in Indiana and West Virginia.

The fourth phase began with the Charlotte Spectrum rollout, on March 14, which will involve about 500,000 homes in that market. Upstate New York and New England will also make the switch to Spectrum this month.

After that, the only remaining former Time Warner Cable market left will be in Hawaii. Since its previous brand changes were spaced out by two months, logic would hold that Hawaii was due for a transition in May, but Charter hasn't finalized a date just yet.

As in other markets, the switchover is an opportunity for Charter to promote its high-speed Intent service, which has higher initial speeds, as well as other service features.