Presley: AT&T endangers Tippah County customers

From Brandon Presley:

LONG POST WARNING: I’ve spent 36 minutes on the phone with the Mayo Flynt, CEO of AT&T Mississippi tonight regarding his company’s COMPLETE INCOMPETENCE in getting the cell phone tower in Tippah County repaired and back online. This tower has been down over TWO WEEKS with three different deadlines missed by the company. The people of this area woke up one day with no service WITHOUT ANY WARNING, in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. While I understand a weather delay, the fact that crews walked off the site and AT&T had NO backup plan is beyond the imaginable and is down right irresponsible. Not once in this time has Mr. Flynt responded to any email that we have sent him. To be clear, those emails also included Rep. Jody Steverson and Sen. Rita Parks who also have been extremely concerned about this issue and wanted to know what the heck was going on. With maybe one exception, every single update that I have received has been because I have had to call persistently to get them.

Tonight, I have our attorneys at the PSC researching any and every authority we have to ensure that people are given notice when these KNOWN outages are to occur and to use what little authority we may have over AT&T to bring accountability. I’m doing this because AT&T plans other outages and the Lord knows the way that they have fumbled this ball we need to step in. I will say again, people in Tippah County woke up one day in the middle of a pandemic without cell phone service and had ZERO notice. The kicker is that I had to ask why they didn’t give notice, they never even thought about it. People are scared, people want to be able to call 911, they need to call about their unemployment and their job.

As a part of this process, I intend to carry this complaint to the national CEO of AT&T Randal Stephenson, if it means that I have to personally pay for a flight to his office and sit outside the door until he comes out. I also intend to make sure that the corporate board of directors understands clearly the awful customer service that the people of Mississippi experience. While I appreciate that certain upgrades are necessary that involve outages, it is UNACCEPTABLE that no notice was give and that the company has missed THREE deadlines and over TWO WEEKS has gone by. I’m sure the board of directors of AT&T would like to know that. Whether they want to know it or not, they are going to know it. Trust me, this isn’t my first rodeo with the complete arrogance of this company.

In the meantime, I have put them on notice that I demand a credit be issued to every customer affected by this outage. Let me be crystal clear for you AT&T executives and lobbyists reading this post, I don’t mean a credit of $10 either. A company that can afford to sponsor Super Bowls and own sky boxes can learn to send a text message to people in certain zip codes that their phone service will be down in the middle of a pandemic. It’s never too hard for them to send you a bill or a text when you are getting close on your data plan.

If you live in this area and have been affected by this, please email me at brandon.presley@psc.ms.gov so that we can make sure your bill gets credited. Please send your name, address and the phone number associated with your account. We need this to process your credit.

More on AT&T: http://newalbanyunionco.com/arrogance-monopoly-communications-providers/