Verizon fixes SoCal voice mail disruption

About 740,000 of Verizon Communications' residential phone service customers in Southern California lost access to their home voice mail service last week because of a server glitch. Some callers also were unable to leave voice mail messages on affected systems. The problem began last Wednesday and was fixed this weekend, but some voice mails received before the glitch occurred were not able to be recovered. Verizon said it will offer the affected customers rebates of $5 to $15 on upcoming monthly bills. I didn't major in math, but that is close to $4 million minimum.

The long duration of the service disruption drew jeers from customers and bloggers, though I bet it's not enough to drive them back to using answering machines. The incident is also a reminder that VoIP and cable TV providers aren't the only companies that suffer service outages from time to time.

For more:
- see this story at The Los Angeles Times

Related articles:
- AT&T had a major U-Verse service outage last fall