AT&T Restores 3G Cell Service After 3 Hour Outage
MIAMI - (CBSMiami) – AT&T has come up with a fix for a problem that disabled its 3G cellular network Tuesday night, a failure that left customers from Broward County to the Keys without cellular service at the end of rush hour. The company said full service should have been restored before 10 PM, about 3 hours after it was first reported.
"AT&T technicians quickly worked to resolve the issue, and service is now running normally," said AT&T spokesperson Kelly Starling. "We apologize for any inconvenience to our customers."
Starling could not say what caused the problem, which the company said started with a piece of switching equipment in Broward County.
Customers who lost service flocked to one AT&T store in Doral looking for answers.
"I just can't get an signal," said customer Vincent Rojo. "I can't make calls or receive them. And I need them for my business. It gets you pretty upset."
"I didn't know why my phone stopped working," said customer Stephanie Ortega. "I thought I hadn't paid my phone bill."
"It's frustrating obviously," said another customer, Mark Rosas. He told CBS4's Peter D'Oench, "I got so used to using my phone. I want it to work all the time."
It was a particular concern for those in emergency services including police and doctors we spoke with. They were concerned about their after-hours calls. One doctor who did not want to be identified, complained, "I have no service."
And customers said they couldn't get answers by calling 611 or AT&T offices. Customer Sergio Barrera said he had to go to the Doral store to get his questions answered. "It's upsetting because the big centers do not know what is going on at the local network."
Calls to the CBS4 newsroom started shortly after 6 pm, as viewers asked if there was any reason their AT&T phones would not work. A spot check of newsroom employees confirmed the viewer calls. Service to anyone with an AT&T 3G phone was out, at least for voice calls and some data services.
If your phone settings allow, it's possible to turn off the AT&T 3G service, and force the phone to look for service on the older and slower "Edge" network. Some phones might do that automatically, but not all.
Customers we spoke with at the Doral store said they were able to successfully find service by switching to the "edge" or 2g network.
Tuesday evening, Starling said the company had worked out a temporary solution while it worked to solve the problem.
"In the meantime, customers will be automatically switched over to the AT&T 2G wireless network where they can use voice and data," she said. "However, data speeds may be slower than usual. We apologize for the service interruption."
That fix was made unnecessary after 3G service was restored.
