Politics & Government

AT&T Says Network Upgrades are Causing Service Disruptions

Atlanta City Councilman Kwanza Hall approaches AT&T about the issues.

Like many people, Atlanta City Councilman Kwanza Hall depends on his iPhone. 

He's got calls to make, email to check and tweets to broadcast. 

So he's frustrated over recent service disruptions from his provider AT&T. He said his family "never had problems with AT&T" until recent months. 

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"Verizon is looking very enticing," Hall said Wednesday from his office at City Hall, the same day that the U.S. Department of Justice blocked AT&T's proposed merger with T-Mobile USA. 

In his office, Hall said he had two bars of service on his AT&T smartphone. He's also had service issues at his home in Old Fourth Ward. "I want full bars in my home," he said. 

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Hall discussed his concerns with AT&T spokeswoman Emily Edmonds on Tuesday. They also chatted last month when they ran into each other in the green room of local television program Atlanta & Company, Edmonds said. 

"She was very receptive to my complaints," Hall said. "She assured me they were working on a rollout plan."

Edmonds said temporary service disruptions are a result of the company upgrading its network to 4G technology. 

"Our wireless network in Atlanta has been undergoing a lot of changes and we’ve been performing a lot of necessary upgrades and enhancements to hundreds of cell sites in the city," Edmonds said.

This year AT&T has made more than 1,000 upgrades around Atlanta, she said. 

"While our network engineers work hard to make these upgrades, there may be some isolated disruptions," she said. "This is only temporary."

Edmond said that the company's fast-growing mobile broadband service "has put pressure on our voice network in some high-volume urban centers like here in Atlanta."

Last week, AT&T launched a website focused on network upgrades around Atlanta. 

The upgrades will "increase capacity and penetration for support of data services and in-building usage." Edmonds said. The work will be ongoing. 


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