AT&T AND i-Phone? What happened to our signal and what's with the late voice mails?

[Redfish Village]

Same exact situation with my iPhone. I have a friend who works with ATT corporate and got my case and an alert for our area sent to "the top" supposedly.

They actually called me yesterday to say that an engineer is coming to our area supposedly this week.

I am not paying my bill and demanding a credit. They will credit our accounts once the engineer has assessed the situation (I am told.)

 

[bruner]

Its not just an I-phone problem. I have At&t and Woke up today (tuesday) with 4 fresh voicemails from Monday morning.

... Technology is only great when it works.

 

[Matt J]

Talked to a friend of mine. They don't want to admit it, but it's capacity issues.

Let me expand with nerd talk to make your head spin.

Basically all of the AT&T towers in the area are not exclusive, most phone companies aren't anymore. Each tower generally goes to a T-1 fiber optic line, but that's not always the case especially in "rural" areas like ours. In some cases they are connected by a standard copper wire and in some extreme cases they are daisy chained via short run satellite.

At any rate this all winds up at a "switch" in Pensacola. Basically this is where all of the phone lines for the 850, 334, and 251 area codes end up. This switch controls every call, text message, and voice mail. It was upgraded back in 2001 in anticipation for (hole on you'll love this) all the development that was to come. It hasn't been upgraded since and is currently over loaded. Apparently someone thought it would be a great idea to have one switch that runs all of the phones (local and roaming) from St. Marks to the Mississippi/Alabama state line.

Basically you're pucked until they upgrade or the tourists leave. Guess which one's going to happen first?

P.S. This switch affects all of the phones in the area and is ironically owned and operated by AT&T.

P.P.S. I was also told that we have a huge shortage of bandwidth in this area and this could be affecting phones as well. That one I'm not really sure about though.

 

[Miss Kitty]

Its not just an I-phone problem. I have At&t and Woke up today (tuesday) with 4 fresh voicemails from Monday morning.

... Technology is only great when it works.

Yep...I have that problem all the time when I am down there with my AT&T phone.

 

[Smiling JOe]

problem still not fixed, but AT&T says they are working on the solution, though it is taking way too long to appease most iphone peeps.

If they aren't careful, they will lose all of their customers. When Verizon starts to sell the iPhone, AT&T can kiss South Walton customers goodbye, unless they are locked into their contracts. iPhones have some great apps, but no one I know who has an iPhone in South Walton, actually gets service inside their homes or offices. Crazy that people would rather have a cool phone with no service than a decent phone with decent service.

 

[Matt J]

problem still not fixed, but AT&T says they are working on the solution, though it is taking way too long to appease most iphone peeps.

If they aren't careful, they will lose all of their customers. When Verizon starts to sell the iPhone, AT&T can kiss South Walton customers goodbye, unless they are locked into their contracts. iPhones have some great apps, but no one I know who has an iPhone in South Walton, actually gets service inside their homes or offices. Crazy that people would rather have a cool phone with no service than a decent phone with decent service.

Umm Verizon isn't on too many peeps list right now either. Ask anyone that had Alltell service.

 

[Smiling JOe]

I have Alltel/verizon, and I can pick up reception in most places where the iPhone struggles. I'm not saying Verizon is great, just that they are much better than AT&T.