Pai Directs Probe After Florida Gov. Scott Slams Carrier Response to Hurricane Michael
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) Tuesday criticized carrier efforts to restore service in Florida after Hurricane Michael. Scott, who's trying to unseat Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Bill Nelson (D) in a tight Senate race, cited Verizon for its outage in Panama Beach. He urged telecom companies do more to help customers. Pai agreed carrier response could be better and asked the Public Safety Bureau to investigate.
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Telecom companies should “be open and communicate a clear plan on how they intend to quickly restore service while treating families fairly,” said Scott. He dismissed Verizon’s Monday statement that 98 percent have service in Florida (see 1810150037). The figure, “which includes customers in Florida that were hundreds of miles away from impacted areas, does not help Florida’s law enforcement in Bay County and families communicate with loved ones in Panama City and does not help those needing medicine call their pharmacy in Lynn Haven,” Scott’s office said. The governor expects providers to waive bills of affected customers and let those people switch providers without penalty.
“Even though efforts to restore communications services have been going well in most of the areas affected by Hurricane Michael, the slow progress in restoring wireless service in areas close to where the hurricane made landfall is completely unacceptable,” said Pai. “While the FCC has been in regular contact with companies serving the affected areas, I’m concerned that their actions on the ground aren’t matching the urgency that we have conveyed during those conversations.” Carriers should “waive the bills of Floridians in these affected areas for the month of October and to allow them to change carriers without penalty,” he said. “These carriers also need to immediately disclose publicly to Floridians how they will quickly restore service.”
Nelson said Tuesday all communications companies in northwest Florida should “restore service ASAP in the areas affected” by the hurricane, tweeting he asked them to “provide a 60-day moratorium on late fees, interest, penalties and any other unnecessary costs.” Affected residents shouldn't “be saddled with late fees and any other unnecessary costs -- particularly those without the means,” Nelson said in a letter to Comcast CEO Brian Roberts. Comcast didn't comment.
Restoration and repairs continue, Verizon said Tuesday. “In Panama City, two more sites came back into service overnight covering the town of Vernon in Washington County and the businesses and residential areas of the western part of Panama City including Gulf Coast State College and [Florida State University] Panama City,” it said. “Crews continue their fiber repair work throughout the day today.”
Verizon will credit every consumer and business customer in Bay and Gulf counties with three months of mobile service per line, Verizon Wireless Group President Ronan Dunne said later. "Verizon is 100% focused on repairing our network in the Florida Panhandle. We are making progress every hour, and we expect that trend to continue at a rapid pace."
"Carriers are taking significant steps to restore their networks in the face of this unprecedented Hurricane," a CTIA spokesperson emailed. "October 11 to October 14, the percentage of cell sites in service rose to 94% in the affected area, and carriers are working around the clock to finish restoring communications.”
AT&T preparations helped the carrier keep customers including first responders "connected during and after the storm in many areas," and crews are "working day and night" in affected areas, a spokesman said. "We deployed 15 large scale portable cell sites to the most storm damaged areas to provide connectivity. Before the storm hit we announced and implemented credits for our customers." AT&T is giving credits to customers in several counties for Oct. 10-21, and could extend them "as conditions require," he said.
The FCC’s disaster information reporting system Tuesday showed 4.4 percent of cellsites down in the total area affected by Michael, many concentrated in Florida, with Bay County showing 61.5 percent of sites down. Gulf County has 43.5 percent of cellsites down. Alabama and Georgia’s outages don’t rise to the same level, with the most affected county outside Florida -- Grady County, Georgia -- having 4.8 percent of cellsites down. The report shows 138,583 cable and wireline subscribers out of service in Florida, compared to 157,371 in Monday’s report. Georgia has 46,393 outages, compared to 61,991, and Alabama went from 3,445 Monday to 735. WFXL Albany, Georgia is off air, vs. the two reported down Monday, and there are still 13 FM stations down. Three AM's are off air, an increase of two.