Can You Hear Me Now?

I guess The Granada (no longer The Granada Theater due to a new branding campaign) will do anything to preserve the historical site. Does anybody know about and can confirm the following? Thanks to ctgsb for sending in the query.

Community Post by CTGSB

Does anyone know about the new "crown" (cell phone antenna array) that has appeared on top of the Granada Theatre Building? What an eyesore! How can anyone look at the enormous effort to restore this historic theatre and building, and then allow this huge metal "thing" to be placed on top of it? Did the City approve this? Under what ordinance? This needs to be investigated, and if possible, removed.

Using Your Cell Phone Along the Chumash Highway

It seems another controversial decision from cell phone service provider AT&T may be affecting our friends in the valley and even here on the coast. Got this from a reader -- anybody experience these issues with their service?

Here's the short story as I understand it from AT&T Mobility (formerly Cingular) tech support last night (10/2).  Until yesterday AT&T phones worked on a combination of AT&T and other provider cell towers.  Without any notice to the customer, AT&T switched to their own cell towers only yesterday (10/2).  Their "network engineers" have studied the area and believe this is acceptable.  The switch means decreased coverage.  For me, living in Santa Ynez, this means the closest tower is 8 miles away and everyone in the Valley is sharing it.  Data messages (text, Blackberry, voice-mail notifications, etc.) seem to work fine.  However outgoing voice calls fail about 90% of the time with a "Network Busy" error message, and most incoming calls go to voice-mail.



AT&T said if enough people complain they'll consider reconnecting with those outside provider towers, but it may take up to two weeks.  Two weeks!!!  My wife and I only have cell phones, my wife works from home 75% of the time and uses her cell phone regularly, and she is 5 months pregnant.  We can't wait two weeks for service.  If it is not back by tomorrow morning (10/4) we'll have to switch to another provider.  AT&T also told me they would waive the cancellation fees on my two-year contract because they are basically forcing us out.



If you have had bad AT&T Mobility (formerly Cingular) service in the last few days please call their tech support at (888) 892-9760.  If enough people complain maybe they'll fix the service before we have to start switching providers.