Cricket cell users had problems when calling 911 for about five hours overnight, city officials said.
Starting at 9 p.m. Thursday, the City of Tucson’s 911 dispatch center had an “unusually large number of dropped calls,” which were later determined to be all from Cricket phones, said Michael Graham, a spokesman for the city.
By 2:30 a.m., Cricket had fixed the problem with its fiber optic lines which affected cellphones in Pima, Pinal, and Santa Cruz counties, Graham said.
“This was a Cricket issue not a city issue, and it has been fixed” he said.
A news alert sent out early Friday said Cricket users should use land lines when calling 911.
Eve Schumacher, 47, is a Cricket user. She, like many people, does not have a land line at home and was concerned Friday morning.
People are also reading…
“It was kind of scary, especially when you have small children at home and one of them has asthma,” she said. “I didn’t receive anything from Cricket telling about this so in case of an emergency I wouldn’t have known.”
Jennifer Briscoe, a Cricket representative, said the cause of the crash is still under investigation and Cricket is working with Qwest to make sure this does not happen again.
U of A president declines to sign shared governance contract with faculty
