Problems with cell service reported

Area phone company officials are trying to find out why some Sprint mobile phone customers cannot reach Plateau Wireless cell numbers.

Kyleigh Knight, Sprint Store manager in Clovis, said she believes the issue is with Plateau. But Plateau regulatory manager Launa Waller said Thursday she knew of only one complaint, which was traced to an issue with Sprint.

Curry County Commissioner Ben McDaniel is among those having problems.

“For the past two days I have had 10 calls to Plateau cellular numbers fail when dialing from my Sprint cell phone,” McDaniel said.

When the call fails there is a half ring, followed by about a 20-second silence and then the call drops, he said.

“I was not sure if it was just my phone or a possible issue with the network.” McDaniel said.

Knight said, “We have had a few subscribers come into the Sprint store or contact us about not being able to call Plateau numbers.”

Knight said Sprint customers who dial Plateau numbers are told there is no route available and the call cannot be completed. She said this is an issue only with Plateau numbers. Sprint customers have no problems when dialing customers on other carrier networks such as Boost, Virgin Mobile or T-Mobile, she said.

“All of Sprint’s customer services are working including text, Internet and picture messaging,” Knight said. “The only issue seems to be when dialing Plateau numbers.”

Plateau’s Waller said, “To my knowledge we only had one complaint of this nature and it was traced back to an issue with the Sprint network.”

Waller said on Thursday she had not been aware of any additional calls or complaint on the issue. She said that normally when an issue like this occurs Plateau is contacted by their customers and customers of the other networks.