HESPERIA, Mich. — An apparent communication breakdown has left the residents of the Hesperia community without phone service for days.
Terry LeBaron said he lost service nearly two weeks ago after a car accident took out a telephone pole. He's been trying to get Frontier Communications to fix it ever since. They haven't, he said, so Terry called on the 13 Help Team for answers.
“Everywhere from that way down to toward my house, we haven't had phone, we haven't had anything,” he related, gesturing in the direction of a telephone pole in the background that appeared to be quite a bit shorter than its neighbors.
A closer look from the side of the road next to it revealed a chunk of the shattered pole still dangling from its cable, hardware and all.
“I'd gotten the outage [notification] right on my phone… they sat there and said there was an outage,” he explained, pulling up the message. “I call Frontier and Frontier says there and says that while it will be up in six hours.”
Despite the promises, Terry said his Hesperia-area home’s sole landline hadn’t had a dial tone for nearly two weeks at the time of publication Tuesday.
“It's not right,” he related. “We have major problems… there's nothing. We don't know who to reach out to next.”
Or with which phone. As locals North of Muskegon well know, cell signals frequently bounce between barely there and zero bars. Landline or no landline, service is usually spotty, so Terry had to make the mile and a half drive from the family compound South of town just to call us up.
“I was sitting right here,” he gestured to a grassy spot alongside M-120 in view of the broken telephone pole. “I called them on the phone and they sat right there and told me it was something they're working on right now… I said no, I'm sitting right here. There is nobody here. And she hung up.”
Hesperia Village officials told 13 OYS they hadn’t heard anything about a communication blackout there.
The issues sure had folks on social talking, with one post racking up dozens of comments describing similar experiences.
The affected area, Terry said, picks up just south of the village limits a few blocks down M-120, where he said dozens of his neighbors were in the same boat.
“For $170 or $180 a month, if you're if you're 10 minutes late with your payment, they're shutting it off, but we can't get it back on after 12 days,” Terry related. “There's something wrong there… These people are out there with nothing.”
Left without a lifeline to get in touch with friends or family or manage life’s emergencies.
“My son yesterday was at school. School couldn't even get a hold of us because there was something wrong with him and that shouldn't happen,” he explained. “Maybe they don't have kids out there. I do. That's my lifeline and other people's lifelines… if they need an ambulance or something, if you don't have cell service, someone's going to die.”
13 OYS called and emailed the public relations contact listed on the Frontier Communications website in advance of publication.
No response had been received as of Tuesday evening.
We also made the Michigan Attorney General’s office and state regulators aware of Jerry’s concerns.
The Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) had not yet received a formal complaint at the time of publication and encouraged those affected to submit their concerns for review via the MPSC website or the Commission's customer assistance line at 800-292-9555.
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