Latest news with #SouthwesternBell
Phone Arena
4 days ago
- Business
- Phone Arena
One customer lost phone service and AT&T chose profit over repair. Are you next?
Do you think that AT&T will break its neck to provide you with telephone service, if you're a single customer in a large area and the local copper cables have just been stolen? Yes? Really? Better think again! In a recent filing with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), AT&T Services, on behalf of Southwestern Bell Telephone Company ( AT&T Texas), requested approval to permanently end traditional copper-based telephone service for a single residential customer in the Forrest Lake neighborhood of Houston, Texas. It all began on May 25, 2025, when 872 feet of copper cable were stolen from a manhole near Bingle Road and West Tidwell Road. That's a lot of cable, but some estimate that thieves would only get $600–$1,000 for it. The worst part is that the theft disrupted service for one subscriber still relying on Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM) technology, commonly known as Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS). According to AT&T , restoring the connection would require a full replacement of the stolen copper at a projected cost of – hold on to your hats – roughly $25,000. That's an expense that no company is ready to swallow easily, so AT&T just deemed it unreasonable for serving a single user. The carrier told regulators the incident was beyond its control and argued that the customer now has access to AT&T Phone – Advanced, a modern, internet-based voice service that the FCC considers a suitable alternative. You've probably heard about AT&T Phone – Advanced before. It operates over AT&T 's wireless network and can also link to a user's existing broadband connection to enhance reliability. It provides a contemporary replacement for traditional landlines while allowing users to retain their current phone number and handset. The service includes features such as caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding, and protection against unwanted calls, and it comes equipped with a 24-hour backup battery to maintain service during power outages. Is it time to go to a cellular service instead? | Image by PhoneArena So, back to the Forrest Lake case: AT&T made it clear it has no intention of restoring the original copper line, citing both the high cost and its broader plan to phase out legacy infrastructure. In the filing, AT&T argued that maintaining outdated copper lines for one customer does not make practical or financial sense, especially as it moves to shut down its copper network entirely by 2029. Recently, the affected household was formally notified by mail that the traditional landline service would not be restored. Instead, the customer was offered the aforementioned AT&T Phone – Advanced for about $45 per month. AT&T also pointed out that wireless voice services from other major providers are available in the area. I'm sure the company is just throwing it out there, in case someone gets the hint. A similar case occurred in California, where AT&T reportedly declined to fix a copper landline connection for an elderly woman after a theft incident disabled her service. The woman, aged 95, was left without a working landline for two months. It was only after local news coverage and public outcry that AT&T restored the line within two days.
Yahoo
20-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
1995: Fort Worth link to Oklahoma City bombing reminds us life is uncertain
(Published April 20, 1995.) The next time Fort Worth attorney Jennifer Last sees her stepfather, she'll hug him. 'He left one office for another meeting,' she said, unleashing a sigh of relief after getting a phone call through to Oklahoma City and her stepfather, former Mayor Andy Coats. 'He had been away 10 minutes. When he came back, that office was gone.' A few minutes. A few steps away. That is how close we are at any moment to losing our families, our friends and our children. On a street in Fort Worth, we can lose loved ones instantly to some sick teenager's gunshot, or to a drunk driver, or to a gust from a springtime tornado. After what happened yesterday on a downtown street in another drowsy cowtown 200 miles north, we know very well now that we can lose loved ones not only to the crack of a rifle shot, but also to the flash of a terrorist's bomb. Before 9 a.m., Coats was sitting in the window of a Southwestern Bell office two blocks away from the bomb. At 9, he left for an executive meeting. 'There was this massive boom, and all the ceiling tiles came down, and all the dust shook,' he said by phone. 'It was nothing but confusion, smoke and mess everywhere.' The first office was 'totally blown out,' he said. 'It made us weak at the knees. If we had still been sitting there — well, we would not be talking to you now.' The blast in Oklahoma City also jolts Fort Worth, because that city might be our long-lost twin. Both cities serve metropolitan counties almost exactly the same size. Both wear the same wardrobe of Old West buckskin trimmed in uptown silver and gold. In Oklahoma City, the people we saw crying and bleeding were not from some faraway city of unfamiliar accents and attitudes. They were our neighbors, people like us. In the darkest days of the Cold War, we grew up fully expecting a foreign attack on Fort Worth. We drilled on hiding under school desks and fleeing to fallout shelters, hoping for any advance notice of what seemed like the inevitable day when our air base, our bomber plant or our helicopter plant would be hit by a bomb. Not any bomb. The Bomb. In those days, the threat of death hung in the air with every test of an air-raid siren. I had forgotten that feeling. Until now. 'What it makes you realize,' Coats said, 'is that anything can happen any day.' 'So enjoy as many days as you can. Because you don't know how many of them you're going to have.' And enjoy as many hugs as you can.
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Calling with COWs: What it took to use a cell phone in downtown OKC in the weeks after April 19th, 1995
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Kurt Beecher walks Harvey Avenue in downtown Oklahoma City as aimlessly as someone might while looking at their cell phone, but he is different in that he's probably more connected than most. Beecher is a longtime cell technician and engineer. He's been with the phone company for more than 30 years, building the bandwidth from analog to 5G, and he remembers the challenge of a young system unable to handle the volume of a terrorist attack. 'It's a different perspective,' he offers. 'Analog technology. One call per channel.' The city has changed a lot in that time, but Beecher can still point to where Southwestern Bell teams brought in a cellular truck on wheels. 'Right here in this parking lot,' he points, standing behind the current OCU Law School parking lot. They still call them COWs today. 'Cell on Wheels,' he said. 'The network was so busy on that day, we'd never experienced it before.' The first truck came in from Dallas in response to April 19th, filled with columns of radio transmitters. Beecher points to an old photograph of the inside of that COW. 'These were radios. These were amplifiers,' he said. Each light on the panel represented one call. 'We stayed and we watched it. If there was a problem, we fixed it immediately,' said Beecher. He doesn't know why, but he kept a trove of snapshots from that time tucked away and buried in a box. What Kurt recalls is what was in the air during that time, cell phone signals, yes, but thousands of thoughts and feelings too. Each one responding to something tragic with whatever they could muster. 'The interesting thing,' he argues, 'is not what any one person did. It's what everyone did.' If you got a call out from downtown OKC in the weeks after April 19, 1995, to deliver news, good or bad, or to tell someone you were okay, it probably came from a COW or a maxed-out cell tower hastily erected to meet demand. Beecher is still on the job 30 years later, long after the COWs went home. He works for AT&T these days. Kurt recently donated his collection of photos and mementos from that time to the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum. Great State is sponsored by True Sky Credit Union Follow Galen's Great State adventures on social media! Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
