Frontier finally comments about 911 outage
6/29/16 Frontier officially comments on 911 outage
After several unsuccessful attempts on Tuesday to get a comment from Frontier about the valley-wide 911 outage, KESQ and CBS Local 2 finally made contact on Wednesday afternoon.
The outage apparently happened after a piece of hardware malfunctioned.
The following statement is from Frontier Communications spokesperson and director of public relations for the west region, Javiar Mendoza.
“What we can tell you is that our network experienced an interruption to 911 services in the Coachella Valley Monday and this is highly unusual and it’s not connected to the transition [From Verizon to Frontier]. We’ve completed a full assessment of the system and are confident that all is in good order.”
Mendoza went on to say, “I can tell you that Frontier Communications engineers and technicians responded immediately and they worked diligently to restore the service within two hours. A piece of hardware malfunctioned and that has been replaced and the system is fully restored. We understand the importance of connectivity and Frontier Communications remains confident in its ability to keep current and future customers connected,” Mendoza concluded.
Mendoza also commented on the rough start Frontier customers experienced after the transition from Verizon.
“I think in some areas we got off to a bumpy start with some customers that experienced service issues. Those issues were caused by some bad data and incorrect serial numbers on some residential fiber terminals. We’re now in normalized operations…if one customer is out of service, that’s one too many,” Mendoza said.
If you’re a customer who still needs assistance, Mendoza said to call them at 1-800-921-8101. Business customers who need help should call 1-800-921-8102.
6/28/16 Frontier fails to explain 911 outage
Frustration, needing help and not able to get it.
Antonio Garcia remembers a couple of years ago needing 911 and not being able to get through.
“[I] tried calling 911. Like busy signal. Forever. And I didn’t have any assistance. Cars were passing by, I mean, luckily no cars hit us at all,” remembers Garcia.
This could have been anyone yesterday while 911 lines were down throughout the Coachella Valley for almost 3 hours.
Law enforcement agencies tell us a Frontier Communications trunk line system, which typically distributes incoming 911 calls to agencies across the valley, malfunctioned around 5 PM.
The system, which Indio Police Department’s Sgt. Dan Marshall believes was located in Blythe, went down during a particularly busy time for police.
“We did not suffer any police services shortage. We were still out there, police were still out there,” says Marshall, “They had full communication with the comm center, our dispatchers were in contact with the police officers out on the street, so in that respect, nothing affected us, the only was the customer getting into the dispatch center.”
Between last night when the news first broke and this morning, KESQ News Channel 3 and CBS Local 2 reporter Kelley Moody has spent well over an hour attempting to get in touch with Frontier Communications. After emailing, calling, and reaching out through Twitter, she eventually called their customer service line to be transferred between 5 different customer service representatives, one of which said the, “Lines were probably messed up,” and “It could have been a bunch of different variables.”
We have yet to receive an official comment as to why the system failed from Frontier Communications.
It is unclear at this time what communication, if any, Frontier Communications has had with the 26 different agencies Sgt. Marshall says lost 911 service.
Sgt. Marshall also says this incident should serve as a reminder to program the back up 10-digit number into their phones should customers ever be unable to reach dispatchers through 911 in an emergency.
