I received a call from the Executive Offices of Verizon Wireless located in California. They were responding to my FCC complaint as required by law. Everyone who filed one should get a response.
Their representative was polite, apologetic and willing to answer my questions.
Q – Did Verizon buy these accounts from South Central?
A – No. Unlike a few years ago when Verizon acquired Alltel, Verizon did not acquire anything from South Central and paid them no money.
Q – Why did Verizon offer to provide services to Escalante, Boulder and Koosharem when their service maps on their own website clearly shows they don’t offer services in those cities?
A – I’m not sure. I believe it was our belief that the agents in your area would point out that and recommend you find service with someone else – thus you would have been prevented from signing up at the local offices.
Q – Does Veriozn Wireless intend to purchase the existing tower or put up a new tower to service Escalante and Boulder?
A – No.There are no plans at this time to install a tower in the immediate future. Things could change but who knows when that might occur. The current tower is 60 miles away on Navajo Mountain In order to have our area receive better service we would have to redirect the signal from that tower and would cause harm to more users in the Page – Big Water Area.
Q – Can people still call and cancel their service without disconnect fees?
A – yes. but I wouldn’t wait very much longer before doing so.Just call the number on the top of your bill (or if you have service -611).
There you have it. Unfortunately, instead of South Central just telling us they were getting out of the cell phone business and we should explore our own options, they recommended we go to Verizon. Sadly, that has cost many of the local businesses time and money and lost business. And don’t look for it to improve anytime soon.
