IPhone anger flares in Freestone over AT&T outage
Jan Heumann takes her dog Topper for a ride while feeding the horses on her Freestone farm. Heumann's AT&T mobile service was discontinued, so she purchased a T-Mobile phone in case of injuries or emergencies involving the horses.
JOHN BURGESS/The Press DemocratPublished: Thursday, August 20, 2009 at 11:29 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, August 20, 2009 at 11:29 a.m.
AT&T says it is working to improve its Sonoma County cellular network, but Freestone residents say a recent change cut off their phone service, including some with pricey iPhones.
The problem arose this month when the phone company stopped allowing customers to roam on a competitor’s cellular network. As a result, residents and winery workers around the village west of Sebastopol say their AT&T cell phones can’t make any calls or, at best, get spotty reception.
Freestone resident Jan Heumann said this spring she purchased an Apple laptop computer specifically to work with her new iPhone. She said she felt confident in doing so because has had received “exceptional” cellular service from AT&T in recent years and has come to rely on it for her safety when working around her ranch of nearly 40 acres.
If the phone company won’t bring back its former level of service, Heumann said, “then you need to remunerate me for this phone I can’t use.”
Along with residential users, Freestone Vineyards has at least 10 company cell phones that use AT&T’s network, as do phones owned personally by workers, said vineyard manager Greg Cannon.
“We’ve come to rely heavily on that phone use out here, if nothing else for emergency purposes,” said Cannon. He said the AT&T service now “is not reliable at all” and “is beginning to frustrate” some of the workers.
The company’s vineyards are in remote areas without regular telephone service, he said.
The residents said the service went out without notice two weeks ago. They spoke with AT&T customer relations representatives and heard various explanations. Some were told the change came about because the company stopped using a competitor’s network or a shared cellular tower.
“I think they should correct it and get a tower installed as quickly as possible,” said Jack Cleary, an AT&T customer who has homes in both Freestone and San Francisco.
“If we would have known this was going to happen, we never would have got iPhones,” said Freestone resident Joanne Davey.
Davey said in May her partner, John Thompson, and she paid over $1,200 to purchase and activate two iPhones. The phones are programmed for use only with AT&T’s cellular network.
AT&T spokesman John Britton said Wednesday that the company’s cellular customers around Freestone for years were roaming for free on the T-Mobile network. “That arrangement ended,” he said.
Along with Freestone, areas affected by the change included Occidental, Sebastopol and Bennett Valley in Santa Rosa.
Bennett Valley is getting a new cell tower, he said, and “we’re going to have great service by the end of the year.”
Of the change, Britton said, “the vast majority of our customers in the area have not been affected.”
In regard to Freestone, he said, “we’re going to work with customers, and we’re going to call those customers and we’re going to work hard to satisfy them.”
However, the company has no plans to renegotiate the roaming feature with T-Mobile or to build its own tower in the area, he said. He estimated that it would take at least two years to design and build a tower.
On Wednesday, Heumann obtained month-to-month phone service from T-Mobile. “I’ve got five bars,” she said, happy once more to be able to contact emergency services, if needed, while working outside on her ranch.
Nonetheless, she said, “I am stuck with a very expensive phone that I can’t use.”
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