After months of complaints and frustration from local customers, Sprint officials have finally agreed to install new equipment that should fix service problems in western Malibu by the end of September.
Councilwoman Laura Rosenthal, Mayor Skylar Peak and most of western Malibu’s Sprint customers have become exasperated with spotty cell phone service and dropped calls over the past 18 months, which seemed to worsen over the last few months.
Both Rosenthal and Peak wrote letters to Sprint CEO Dan Hesse and Chief Network Officer John Saw on June 17 demanding they “address the situation immediately and come up with a reasonable and timely response plan.”
Rosenthal said even though service has been steadily declining for a year and a half, locals have become more outraged over the past six months as service became “increasingly unreliable” in terms of dropped calls and failure to connect.
A Sprint cell customer herself, Rosenthal is unable to make calls while driving on PCH, which she finds “frightening,” saying it creates a “dire situation” from a public safety point of view, since she’d be unable to call her family or even dial 911 in an emergency. She told Sprint that as a parent and public servant, the lack of service is unacceptable.
In addition, she wrote that Sprint’s customer service department “does nothing to help” because they are unable to answer customers’ questions about the problems. The only action they take is to occasionally schedule equipment repairs that “never seem to be completed in a timely manner.”
In response to Rosenthal’s letter, Ryan Shepard, regional sales manager for Sprint, said that Malibu “doesn’t have normal cell towers.” The city is one of only eight communities in California with “DAF” nodes — a relaying system for wireless users in difficult terrain. Shepard said the manufacturer no longer supports the DAF product, so it’s difficult to make repairs. Sprint has been replacing broken DAFs with the LTE network.
Shepard added that Sprint is also considering assigning a technician to cover Pacific Coast Highway from the Palisades through Malibu in order to fix problems as they occur.
Rosenthal will be spearheading the Sprint cell phone issue for the city until it gets resolved, and will be meeting with a Sprint engineer-in-charge in two weeks.
Rosenthal posted the letter she wrote to Sprint executives on her Facebook page, and urged everyone in Malibu with Sprint cell phone problems to write them a letter. “More people should write to the CEO,” she said in an interview. “The Sheriff’s Department and the fire captain will also write letters to Sprint addressing the public safety aspect.”
Rosenthal was glad Sprint responded quickly to her letter, but remains worried as Malibu heads into the summer.
“It makes me nervous for the rest of the summer, because it’s the busy season, and because it’s always fire season,” she said.
Mayor Peak also received a call from Sprint informing him of system upgrades and fixes by the end of September.
“I saw a Sprint repair truck in Point Dume today, so maybe that’s a good sign,” he laughed.
In the meantime, until the problems are fixed, some residents are finding relief by calling Sprint customer service and requesting an AIRAVE Microcell. The small device, which Sprint provides free of charge, helps improve cell phone service for some customers by connecting to the home internet.