Phone Service Resolution: From Jumbled Mess to Adequate

Every summer since then, when the weather turns hot and sticky, Ende's phone conversations have been consumed by static. Sometimes, he said, his line simply disconnects.

Each year, Ende calls AT&T (NYSE: T) to complain and the phone company sends a repairman to patch things up. The annual ritual has kept his phone service working, but at a cost: The utility pole behind his house looks like a futuristic art installation. Thin wires of every conceivable color spill out like an explosion of rainbow spaghetti. Thicker plastic tubes hang in loops or snake around the pole.

Black plastic wrap is supposed to protect the mess from the elements, but Ende said that more often than not, the covering is peeled back, leaving the wires exposed.

Jumping Ship

This summer the Lemont, Ill., resident decided he had seen enough. When Preferred Long Distance called him in June offering lower rates if he switched phone service, Ende took the plunge.

It wasn't exactly what he had hoped for. When his first bill arrived in July, the savings were insignificant. And when he asked Preferred Long Distance whom he should call if he experienced problems with his service, a customer service representative told him AT&T, because it owned the lines.

Figuring he would get no benefit from staying with Preferred, Ende decided to switch back.

He called AT&T, which said it was glad to have him back. There was, however, one catch: to keep his old number, he'd have to pay a premium. He was told his number used old technology the phone company could no longer support .

To keep the number, he was told, AT&T could assign him a different number, then have all his calls forwarded to the old number. It would cost him about $25 more a month plus a per-minute charge for each call.

Forget It

Ende, who runs a small business in his house and needs his old number, said no thanks.

Convinced there had to be another way, Ende kept calling AT&T and asking whether there were an alternative. Repeatedly, he was told no. So he wrote What's Your Problem?

"I'm thinking, if other companies are capable of [giving us] our phone number, why can't AT&T?" he said. "I don't understand it."

He also couldn't understand why the phone company wouldn't just fix the mess behind his house or upgrade the lines so he could change from dial-up Internet service to DSL.

"Our phone service here is disgusting," Ende said. "Temporary repairs have been made by AT&T and minimal effort on the part of the company has been made to solve the problem."

Work In Progress

The Problem Solver called AT&T spokesperson Meghan Roskopf, who dug into the issue. Within two weeks, the phone company had switched his number back to AT&T, without the call-forwarding charges.

It also sent out a crew Tuesday to repair the wires behind Ende's home. Ende said a repairman took a look at the situation and told him it would take a more significant fix.

Roskopf said the job was referred to AT&T's engineering department so the cables in Ende's neighborhood could be buried. That process, she said, requires easements and permits from Lemont.

"We've escalated this, but as you can imagine it may take longer to complete," Roskopf said.

When the work is complete, Ende also will be able to get DSL. "Evidently, they're finally bowing to the concerns that there is an issue out here," Ende said.

In the end, he'll pay about $3 less a month for his phone service, Ende said, based on the new rate structure he was given.

He said he was told the new cables will be buried within two months.

Ende said he respects the customer service representatives who took the time to talk to him about his problems, and the repairmen who made repeated visits to his house in recent days.

"The service repair guys are trying their best," he said. "They just have [bad equipment] to work with."

Soon that will change.

"They couldn't do anything for us in the past," Ende said. "Now they can do everything."