Glitch Affects AirTouch Pre-Paid Cards

A computer network problem at AirTouch Communications has prevented some Southern California customers with pre-paid calling cards from making calls, the company said. The problem surfaced late Wednesday evening, when card owners were getting fast busy signals instead of reaching their party, said Andrew Colley, a company spokesman. AirTouch declined to say how many people were affected in Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties. AirTouch, which has regional headquarters in Irvine, also declined to say how many pre-paid calling card customers it has in the five-county area, citing competitive reasons. “The number is a small fraction of our total subscriber base, and we think the number of people affected by this is a fraction of that,” Cooley said. “We’re trying to fix the problem as soon as possible.” AirTouch’s local customer service team logged 131 complaints Thursday, but it is unknown how many of these were related to the calling-card problems, Cooley said.