A widespread series of cell phone service outages affecting many AT&T customers is under a thorough investigation by the company.
The situation has left customers, along with area first responder agencies, quite frustrated.
Nye County Emergency Services Director and Pahrump Valley Fire and Rescue Services Chief Scott Lewis told the Pahrump Valley Times that he learned the issue was caused by a ‘downed circuit,’ which impacted area cell phone towers and carriers.
He noted that it’s uncertain how long it would take to remedy the problem.
Spotty service
“Service has been intermittent, and in some cases there is no service at all because there’s absolutely no connection whatsoever,” he said. “The calls simply won’t go through, so they will just get dead air, or they will receive a text message saying that it couldn’t go through. We implemented a device at the rear of our Station One, which helps with our emergency response operations and it has had some positive impact on some of the 911 services. I know our IT department is working very closely with dispatch to make sure that it is corrected as fast as possible, and they are trying to affect the repair.”
Uncertainty abounds
Lewis also said that at present, it remains unclear exactly how long it will take for the entire situation to be resolved, while noting that other areas of Southern Nevada have also been impacted by the service disruption.
“I’ve heard that Optimum and some of the other carriers have also experienced intermittent internet service as well,” he said. “I’ve also heard some parts of Las Vegas have been impacted, but I have not been able to substantiate that.”
Don’t blame AT&T
Nevada District 36 Assemblyman Gregory Hafen II also voiced his thoughts to the Pahrump Valley Times about the communication breakdown.
Hafen said that he’s been in constant contact with AT&T officials shortly after he and other area residents began experiencing the problems.
He also made sure to point out that the incident is not AT&T’s fault.
“It’s not just Pahrump, because it’s also affecting Sandy Valley and Indian Springs, but I believe those have mostly been fixed,” he said. “In Pahrump, I believe there’s been multiple issues, and again, it’s not exclusively an AT&T issue, though it’s affecting AT&T customers.”
Additionally, Hafen noted that he’s interested in looking into possible backup options in the event of similar circumstances moving forward.
“One of the conversations I was having with AT&T was regarding the need to start looking into having redundancies, and they are looking at that,” he said. “Hopefully, they’ll get this problem fixed through their fiber provider, and also start working toward additional redundancies so we don’t ever have these kinds of problems again.”
“I’m Done”
Pahrump resident Roslyn Aubuchon, a Mountain Falls resident, was so fed up with the situation, she, along with several of her neighbors, recently switched their phone carrier service from AT&T to T-Mobile because of the whole issue.
Despite what area officials said about where the blame lies, she switched her phone service from AT&T to another provider. “I don’t want to give out my other neighbor’s name, but he’s a disabled vet, and he was with AT&T,” she told the Pahrump Valley Times. “He and his wife just switched to Verizon and I switched to T-Mobile.”
As a 74-year-old, Aubuchon noted that she and her other friends of like age, regularly rely on their cell phones to secure their prescription medications.
“It’s interfering with people’s medication needs, and it’s a complete disaster,” she told the Pahrump Valley Times. “They can’t fax their prescriptions in, and there’s some critical medications that people need. I have phone service now, because I switched to T-Mobile, and that’s really sad.”
Waiting for answers
Moreover, Aubuchon said that the whole debacle got even more frustrating when looking for answers and explanations at Pahrump’s AT&T office.
“If you go down to the AT&T office, they have a sign out front saying that they are temporarily closed due to network issues and staff safety,” she said. “We don’t know what’s going on. We have no information and they won’t even let you come inside the office. One of my neighbors who lost his temper, got a letter from AT&T telling him that he’s not allowed to come down and berate the employees, and he was not allowed to go back into the office again. Even after waiting for two hours, nobody ever comes on the phone line.”
“Right now, I don’t even care anymore because I’m with T-Mobile,” she declared. “We couldn’t text, we couldn’t call, and we couldn’t receive calls either. It was just a big mess. I talked to the gals inside AT&T, and they said that you just have to keep calling. They are being so bombarded that you can’t get through.”
Contact reporter Selwyn Harris at sharris@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @pvtimes