NEW YORK-A class action lawsuit was filed last week by AT&T Wireless Services Inc. subscribers frustrated by dropped calls, busy signals and other indications of possible network unreliability. The case against the company was prompted by a recent service outage serving three area codes in New York.
AT&T Wireless restored service in less than 24 hours to customers in the New York City metropolitan area affected by a switch failure May 2, but company officials hadn’t identified the cause of the breakdown as of May 12.
The outage, which affected 250 cell sites-about 20 percent of its area network-began at 3: 40 a.m. that Sunday morning and continued until about 1 a.m. May 3, said Chris Doherty, director of corporate communications for AT&T Wireless’ eastern region.
“It was a significant event,” he said.
Ericsson Inc. and Lucent Technologies Inc. supply AT&T Wireless’ switches, but Doherty said he isn’t sure which manufacturer supplied the affected switch.
Because of the timing of the malfunction, Doherty said the company doesn’t believe the problem is related to capacity constraints of its infrastructure.
The popularity of its digital one-rate plan has caused call volume overloads for AT&T Wireless, especially in its large markets like New York City and its environs. Frustrated subscribers claim the company has not built out its system in order to keep pace with the popularity of the one-rate plan.
Last month, Rod Nelson, chief technology officer for AT&T Wireless, told RCR the carrier is on track to meet a June target for expanding its network’s call handling capability in response to rising demand.
AT&T Wireless was able to restore service without having identified the outage’s root cause by means that, in laymen’s terms, is akin to rebooting a computer without knowing what caused it to crash, Doherty said.
The carrier will offer affected customers a 10-percent rebate on this month’s bills as an apology, he said.
Queried about estimates of lost revenues, Doherty responded, “You’re asking some of the same questions we are still trying to answer.”
