North Carolina SunCom Wireless Customers Endure Second Day Without Service
Posted on: Monday, 25 July 2005, 18:00 CDT
Jul. 25--About 3,000 SunCom Wireless customers in North Carolina were without phone service for a second day Friday as the company worked to switch over former AT&T subscribers.
About 9,000 business customers experienced service disruptions, some losing voice mail or other features. A third of those affected lost their phone service entirely.
The company, which described the problems as "billing and technical issues," said it was unsure when service would be restored.
The customers whose service was disrupted or cut off were originally with AT&T Wireless. When AT&T was bought by Cingular Wireless last year, SunCom inherited 211,000 customers in North Carolina from AT&T Wireless as part of the deal. To appease federal regulators, Cingular gave up North Carolina customers to SunCom and took over SunCom's customers in Virginia.
The transfer of AT&T customers to SunCom began about three months ago and is to conclude this month.
"This is an isolated incident," said SunCom spokeswoman Karen Rountree. "We have not experienced anything of this nature thus far."
SunCom will reimburse customers so they're not charged for the time their phones were out of service, Rountree said.
SunCom and Cingular issued a joint statement Friday, without either blaming the other.
"I'm in never-never land," Frank Quinn, a commercial real estate broker from Cary, said about losing his service. "There was no warning. They just shut everybody off."
Customers who had originally signed with AT&T have been complaining for months about the inconveniences involved in the transfer. Some have had to reprogram their phones or get new ones. Others have had to negotiate new calling plans. The penalty for canceling an AT&T contract is $175.
SunCom, based in Berwyn, Pa., serves 960,000 customers in the Southeast, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
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Source: The News & Observer
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