Residents in Estero, Florida, a village of less than 40,000 people located south of Fort Myers, say that their cell phones are failing to hold a connection. As WinkNews.com reports, neighbors say that although WiFi works, their cell phones frequently don’t. They say they have reached out to carriers AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, but have received unsatisfactory responses.
“It’s just… it’s not right,” said Cyndi Childs, one of the residents in The Preserve at Corkscrew, an area affected by faltering cell service. “Something’s wrong, it needs to be addressed. Whether it be these carriers or the mayor or the village or whatever, it needs to be addressed. Because $340 a month for 10 percent coverage? The end. Really, I would classify it as probably brutal service,” she added.
Responding to statements from Village Manager, Steve Sarkozy, who pointed to the carriers as the source of the connection issues, WinkNews.com reached out to each of the three carriers. Although no response was received from T-Mobile, the other two carriers did issue statements. AT&T’s comment was brief, acknowledging that work on the lines had affected cell service earlier in January, but claimed that “at this time, the wireless network is operating normally in the area.”
“This is an exceptionally dynamic time for our industry and company,” noted Verizon in its written responses. “Changes in how and where people use the network have shifted network capacity and coverage needs. Significant work is being done in the network to meet our customers’ changing needs. Some work on cell sites recently impacted service in your area. That impact has been resolved and full service restored. Over the next several months, many additional cell sites covering this area will be getting upgrades including access to 5G service using our C-band spectrum and adding capacity on our 4G service.”
Despite the carriers’ claims, residents say that the cell service is atrocious and wonder who will step up and fix it, according to WinkNews.com. “Our only communication is through a cell phone,” said one unnamed resident. “And if there’s an emergency, how do we get a hold of EMTs or whoever we might need? Fire department? Anybody? Right. And that’s the issue that I see; the main issue.”
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