AT&T has apologized to Burbank customers for a phone issue last week, which prompted an unusual advisory from the Burbank Police Department last Thursday: “AT&T has notified BPD that callers to 911 from 847 and 565 phone number prefixes may not reach police or fire due to damaged underground phone lines. In Burbank, call 818 238 3000 for police and 818 956-4800 for paramedic/fire services. Please contact AT&T directly with questions about the cause and duration of this issue.”
The problem apparently lasted for a couple of days. On Saturday, July 17, Meredith Red, AT&T PR manager, sent me this email statement:”Due to a fiber cut caused by a contractor working on the I-5 freeway expansion in Burbank, some AT&T customers in the area may have experienced issues with wireline services. Technicians worked as quickly as possible to resolve the issue and service is currently running normally. We apologize for any inconvenience.” Okay, but wait there’s more.
I called AT&T phone repair last Friday, July, 17, about “no line” issue on my Burbank landline phone. A pre-recorded message warned of “heavy call volume.” However, I stayed on the line until I got to speak with an AT&T representative. I was told by the AT&T employee the earliest a technician could come out to fix my phone problem would be the following Monday. In order to get that appointment, I had to agree to be at home ALL day. When I complained about that very wide repair window, the rep told me if I had some other phone issue like noise on my line, I could not get an appointment for at least a week. This suggests that AT&T was dealing with more than just customers calling up about the Burbank issue.
I sent off emails to some media relations types at AT&T and got an email response from Red. To her credit, Red got my landline phone repaired on Friday and sent me emails about the damaged underground phone lines in B-town. However, as to what type of problems or phone issues were responsible for the heavy call volume, well, no answer yet from AT&T.
