AT&T internet, phone outages hinder some Dallas businesses for days

A Dallas law firm complains it has been without AT&T phone and internet service since Monday.

The service company acknowledges a problem that impacted some businesses but says service is restored.

The Geoff Henley Law Firm contacted FOX 4 for help. After we contacted AT&T, technicians were at the business to restore its service.

By Thursday afternoon, the law firm confirmed that all of its services were restored.

But before that happened, Dallas attorney Geoff Henley says the outage caused massive headaches for his office and its customers.

"We're not able to work. I've got people not doing things, and you sit there, and you wring your hands," he said. "Do you send them home and not do anything at all and save on payroll? Or do you try to manage?"

Some employees were doing what they could offline while others were using their personal hotspots to connect to the internet.

"And we have been told on Tuesday it would be put back on between 8 and 4. We were told the same thing on Wednesday. Another 24 hours," Henley said. "They've blown multiple deadlines that they have said they were going to satisfy us."

Henley says he's been told different reasons for the disconnection.

"There's a gateway within the system and somebody accidentally disconnected something, and it appears to be affecting business accounts," he said.

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Henley was hamstrung not being able to handle calls that could bring business.

"And also getting clients angry because we're not fielding the phone calls," he said. "We get clients who want to know, ‘What's going on with my case? Where's my money you? I haven’t received my appointment, my rental car.’ It absolutely adversely affects us. Deadlines can get blown. We have to communicate with attorneys, so it’s a real kneecapping."

In a statement, an AT&T spokesperson said, "Our network technicians worked quickly to resolve a software issue that disrupted internet service for a small number of business customers.  We apologize for any inconvenience this outage may have caused and appreciate our customers’ patience and understanding as we worked to resolve the issue."

The company says if someone has internet issues, reboot your modem. And if you still have problems, contact customer support.