Verizon's advertising slogan, “Can you hear me now?” has certainly worked its way into the popular culture, but valley residents in the 378 prefix area may be asking that question more often as Verizon repair trucks have been out in force trying to correct the phone service problems plaguing the Southlake, Weldon and Onyx communities.
Talk to a few Verizon customers on the south side of the lake and you'll quickly find they share similar problems with phone service, distortion, an inordinate amount of busy signals when calling out, disconnecting during calls, and what Lisa Johnson of Southlake described as an “outerspace sound.”
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She said two of her neighbors complain of the same types of technical difficulties, but leave it up to her to call in. “They think their phone will get fixed when I call them out,” she said.
Verizon spokesman Mike Page, said Verizon is doing all it can to deal with the problem, which they now believe has been isolated and some have been “possibly repaired.”
“But there could be something more extensive that we have not found for other customers,” Page said, “and we encourage the customers, if they are having problems, to continue to call into the customer support department.”
Cathey Lundberg, who lives in Onyx, said she didn't realize at first that it wasn't her problem; she thought maybe her phone was causing the issues. “I thought it was me,” she said.
Page said the first place to check for phone problems is in your own home. Check phone equipment first, and if that is not the problem, then it's time to call Verizon. He said notifying the company can help them identify problem areas and possibly aid them in tracking down the problem.
According to local radio personality, Bob Jamison, known for his “Dam Talk Show,” and who recently took over the popular weekly Tradio program, he said he receives calls from buyers and sellers from around the lake, and he can actually hear the difference when a call comes in from the 378 prefix. “It's gotten to a point where you can actually recognize it,” he said.
Jamison said the static makes it difficult to hear callers who often quickly tick off a long list of items they are selling. So far, the station has not had to disconnect any of these callers, but Jamison said, they may have to start asking them to call back from a clearer line.
“It's really hard to have a radio program and try to understand the people, when you can't understand them because of the phone connection.”
Neal Preston, manager of James Sierra Gateway Market in Southlake, said his store has credit card machines, ATM, lottery, fax and Internet all hooked into the phone lines, and the problems with the Verizon have impacted their business. “It's a pretty vital part of our business,” he said.
Preston said the problems have been around for a while, but have more recently become more severe, causing customers delays in checking out with ATM and credit cards. “There will be no connection, but typically after three or four times it will process,” he said. “It can take several minutes while customers have to stand in line.”
Although the problems have continued, the store's Internet service was out for two weeks, Preston said the repair crews have been helpful and attentive, and are working with the store to resolve the issues. But the question is, “What is the problem?”
On a recent trip to Onyx, a repair truck could be seen on the side of the road in front of a Verizon cabinet containing wires that carry the phone signals throughout the area.
The repairman opened the pedestal and several grass nests fell to the ground. Upon inspection, rodent feces could be seen stuck to the light colored plastic wire sheaths, while bare wires were noted to have obvious breaks, with green corrosion built up on the bare copper indicating the wire had contact with moisture.
Page said they have been dealing with this problem for a “long time.” And combined with the problem of mice, there was a recent issue with a farmer flooding his field, which adversely affected a conduit line, which is implicated as the cause of the current troubles.
Several Verizon customers in the 378 prefix area complain that the phone service has been ”bad as long as they can remember.” Asked if this is a recurring problem, Page said because of the type of system that we have in the Kern River Valley, that, “Yes,” it requires high maintenance.
Page went on to say, “When you have a copper network that's exposed both above ground and in some cases below ground, repairing it and maintaining it is a constant job,”
He said that there are different problems in different places all throughout Verizon's network. In some places in the mountains, woodpeckers are the nuisance; in others, it's water or rodents.
“Sometimes it's heat, in places too hot, the cabinets get so hot it affects the service,” he said. “Sometimes it's too cold. So, we have problems everywhere depending on the elements.”
With Verizon's pedestals exposed and above ground, an attraction to homeless vermin, Page said, it would be too expensive to bury the cables underground. “We wouldn't underground it because of mice,” Page explained. “There might be some other reasons for covering it, if someone else is already going to be opening up the road and there's going to be a trench, we might take advantage of doing it at that time. Not for mice.”
As far as redesigning the cabinets to prevent the tiny rodents from homesteading amongst the telephone lines, Page said he didn't know the status of that issue. However, he expressed assurances that maintenance and repair people are working on it.
“Our number one priority is that our customers are in service and have continuous service 24/7,” Page said. “And if there was already a solution, I think they would already have implemented it.”
Gary and Cindy Hansen of Weldon said they have been frustrated because they are continually getting knocked off line while utilizing the local access numbers for their dial-up Internet service. Cindy said, “I get right in the middle of something and then it disconnects, it's so frustrating.”
Husband Gary spent 28 years with AT&T climbing poles and servicing residential and commercial customers, such as the control tower at the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, Walt Disney Studios, NBC, ABC, and CBS, and he said he knows exactly what's going on.
“Their system is old and their stuff isn't sealed properly and gophers and rodents can dig and chew their way in, leaving openings for moisture to get in,” Gary Hansen said.
Justin French, local manager of customer operations for Verizon, agreed that the current system that's in place was implemented in the 1960s and is due for an update. But, he said, Verizon has been working on it, and customer complaints have decreased.
According to Hansen, they have known how to correct the problem with rodents for years, but the issue is always money.
“If it was brought up the street in conduit, and there were cement pads for the pedestals and openings for the conduit to come into, they could seal around it, pull the lines through, then drop them through the conduit into each house, then cap them off with clay, and you'd never have any problems,” he said.
When working on the phone lines for the television studios, Hansen said, they always had good service and were always taken care of first.
“Studios didn't have all the problems the general public had because they had money,” he said. “And where there's big money coming in, the company puts forth the effort. But for the individual, they say it's not cost effective.”
While repair crews have been servicing the mouse- ridden pedestals, they have been forced to reroute three of the 10 trunk lines between Weldon and Lake Isabella, thus avoiding the problems with static. This in turn, has caused somewhat of a traffic jam, creating more than the usual amount of busy signals when customers are trying to call out, according to French.
French went on to say that much is being done to correct the service and he hopes, with a little luck, it will be done in the near future. “I would like nothing more than to get this fixed and done. And we will keep working until it is resolved.”
In the meantime, customers experiencing problems, should notify Verizon and ask about the service guarantee. 1-800-483-1000.
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