Verizon fixes voice mail glitch, promises rebates
More than 740,000 Verizon customers in Southern California who lost access to their home voice mail accounts for several days last week got back in early Saturday and will be receiving rebates of $5 to $15 on their upcoming bills, the second-largest U.S. phone company said.
A database error in a central server in Ontario froze the software for all land-line customers subscribing to Verizon’s voice mail beginning early Wednesday.
The problem prevented customers from accessing their voice mail and some callers from being able to leave messages.
The company said unretrieved voice mails during the three-day period were recovered and are now available to customers. However, voice mails from Tuesday, Feb. 5, could not be restored. The outage did not affect Verizon Wireless customers.
Jonathan Davies, a Verizon spokesman, said the root cause of the problem had been fixed and the company had launched an investigation into how it occurred. “We’re taking a detailed look at how the system failed to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Davies said.
In 2005, at least 150,000 customers over a large swath of Southern California lost their phone and Internet service for as much as 12 hours because of a computer glitch at a Verizon central switching plant.
That outage, which also cut off 911 service from many land lines, struck communities from Hermosa Beach to Newport Beach along the coast and as far inland as Whittier and Garden Grove. Some cellphone service was also lost, though on a more limited basis.
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