I took "comms" to mean outside communications like radio, cable, or satellite, not intercoms. The Others stated that the intercoms hadn't worked for a long time.

A monkey could repair intercoms. What are these people? Schizophrenic savants? Afterall, they still have functioning CCTV's all over the wretched island. So they're trained in video repair, but not audio?

Talk about technological differentiation. "I can take an x-ray, but I can't splice wires or solder connections. My union won't allow it."