DALLAS — The phones are quiet at Two Podners Restaurant in South Dallas. They're not ringing at Walker Auto Body down the street either.
It's not because no one is calling.
"Since we returned from Christmas, there’s been no phone," Mark Walker explained in the office of his auto body shop. "I’m very unhappy at this moment."
While the AT&T service was down across South Dallas business owners said the two-week-long outage was impacting their revenues. The outage meant Conwright couldn't take called-in takeout orders and, for a time, couldn't process credit cards either.
"Because of that, my cash register not ringing at all too. As much as it would be," said Fred Conwright, who runs Two Podners.
On January 8, AT&T told WFAA the company had restored the outage.
"We have completed repairs in the Southern Dallas area that was affected by copper theft. We appreciate the patience of our customers."
AT&T says it deployed more fiber per capita in South Dallas than they have across the entire city of Dallas.
"More than 72% of households in our internet service footprint in the City of Dallas area have access to fiber. And, if you narrow that to southern Dallas, the number is much higher at 80%."
The impact of the outage was first reported by the Dallas Morning News.
In a statement, an AT&T spokesperson said: "There were damages to multiple pieces of equipment in multiple areas and we are working around the clock to restore service for our customers."
Conwright said adding to his frustration was the feeling his part of South Dallas can just not catch a break.
"Because every time we have an issue in this part of the city, we don’t get a response like other parts of the city do and this is a plight that we’ve been fighting for a long time," he said.
AT&T denied that the location or demographics of the area have impacted service restoration.
"We treat all outages with urgency and handle them as quickly as possible," the spokesperson said.
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