AT&T outage affecting all SoCal
Throughout the weekend, many AT&T customers throughout Southern California and several other places in the country began experiencing internet and phone service outages.
Although the outages have been reported throughout large areas of the country, at least the Southern California outage is attributed to a wildfire in the Potrero area in San Diego County according to AT&T.
“Due to a fire in San Diego County some customers in the Potrero and Campo areas may experience issues with their wireless, landline or internet services,” said an AT&T representative in a statement.
Local AT&T user might have to be patient until the fire is contained before AT&T is able to solve the problem.
According to the latest update by CAL FIRE the wildfire has already blackened 1,900 acres and it has only been contained in five percent of the area.
The fire began Sunday morning.
“Our network technicians are prepped and awaiting access to the impacted area to assess the damage and begin restoration efforts. We apologize for any inconvenience,” said an AT&T representative.
The service outage in the Imperial Valley was a particular concern for some local businesses which rely on the internet service to operate.
Frank Llamas owner of Calexico Smog Check came to his shop Monday morning only to realize that he had no internet service, which for him means that he was unable to do any inspections because the computers that he is required to use need internet.
He also said that because his phone service works through the internet that service is also down.
“It’s really frustrating because we are losing money and business,” Llamas said.
When he called his provider to get answers he said all he got was an automated service which said they were working on the issue and added that any available agents wouldn’t be able to give him any additional information.
“The internet service is so critical for the business that I’m considering changing provider for the time being, so I can continue to run it,” Llamas said.
On Monday morning Llamas had to turn away a couple of customers and his biggest concern is that he’ll lose customers if the outage takes too long before he can go back to normal.
“Anybody that does smog inspections and has service will have all the work right now,” Llamas said. “We’re close to the end of the month and people are trying to get inspections done to register their cars.”
Another concerned business owner is Bianca Arellano owner of SAT Innovations in Calexico whose business also heavily relies in having internet service.
SAT Innovations is a dealer for various cell phone provider and satellite television. Due to the outage they are unable to process payments, modify accounts or activate new accounts.
“It’s bad for the business. It can lead to a situation that the customers don’t understand that this is out of our hands, go somewhere else and not comeback,” Arellano said. “We would be very grateful with our customers if they have a little patience while this gets resolved.”
As of Monday afternoon the largest outages reported where in Southern California, the Bay area, San Antonio-Austin area, Miami, New York City and Boston.
The map of affected area can be found at www.downdetector.com/status/att/map/
AT&T said that they were not aware of any other outages outside the San Diego Area.
Staff Writer Edwin Delgado can be reached at edelgado@ivpressonline.com