Verizon dropping rural Montanans could affect emergency services

In rural Montana, where you and your neighbors are your own first responders come fire, flood or heart attack, being dropped as a customer by Verizon Wireless could have serious impacts, readers told us.

Kim Barlogio lives southeast of Hammond in the remote southeastern corner of Montana. She was among the Montanans who recently received a letter from Verizon informing her she would no longer be a customer after "using a significant amount of data while roaming off the Verizon Wireless network."

Customers said they never knew Verizon was using other providers' towers and have limited — if any — other options.

MORE: Verizon drops some rural Montana customers

Barlogio, a Verizon customer since 2000 who ran two companies with Verizon as her provider, contacted Verizon and was told the company no longer had a contract with Mid-Rivers Communication and would not offer service in her area.

"Mid-Rivers is not taking any new customers," she wrote. "As a community, we have nowhere else to go. We depend on our phone for emergencies.

"Out here we are our own fire department, police department and emergency services. Not only do we help each other out, we are continually helping stranded travelers that do not have Verizon, as no other providers work out here," she continued.

Verizon was the one who offered her an unlimited data plan, Barlogio wrote. She made the switch, only to be dropped as a customer.

Doug and Fran Hamilton of Hogeland, north of Harlem, said they found Verizon's response inadequate after a decade of being customers and having seven lines.

"To notify us that our service will be canceled as of October 17th without offering any alternatives for our rural areas is very poor customer service," they wrote.

Steve Leitner of Hogeland (north of Harlem and 11 miles south of Canada) is the service director of the local county ambulance service.

"Probably 90 percent of our paging goes through Verizon texts. We use texts in tactical situations where radios will not work also," he said.

Shantel McCutchan, who ranches between Alzada and Hammond, said she increased the amount of data in her plan in May to get her through lambing season. She's been a Verizon customer since 2005.

Then she was hit with the cancellation letter recently.

"Our phones are our lifelines when we are out calving or feeding in the winter," especially in extreme temperatures in the remote corners of the ranch.

"We even use the phones to check the pivot from our house in case it goes down," she said.

She called a local provider only to be informed they aren't taking new customers.

"There are no other providers in the area so I'm not sure what we are going to do, especially since there are really no other options," McCutchan wrote.

Mid-Rivers posted a letter to dropped customers that they will put people on an "interest list" if they need a new provider and recommended using Wi-Fi not cellular data at home.

"The relationships we have with this provider have not changed. Like other small carriers around the US who are dealing with the same issue, we did not know this was coming. Because we have been losing cellular customers to this company's active marketing in our area for years, we did not have any excessive inventory of devices on hand or other resources needed to support a large influx of new cellular customers."

In nearby Alzada, Dawn Pilster, too, received the "dreaded letter from Verizon" in southeast Montana.

"Everyone is very concerned about this as we use our phones for more than entertainment. We use it for business, fire calls, accidents among other things," she wrote. "It just stinks as we have been customers for 14 years and it doesn't seem to matter. "

Kaila Williams of Hammond said the loss of Verizon service is "a shock to say the least."

She said she's not worried about losing access to Facebook or Snapchat but about losing a "life line" — to quote Verizon's own marketing.

"In our remote area every minute counts in an emergency. Hospitals are a long distance from our homes. I understand that Verizon is a business and they are not making money, having our rural number in service. At some point ethics have to come into play," she wrote.

Williams wrote that cell phones have saved her family, used to contact help from neighbors, when a winter storm meets a vehicle breakdown on a lonely country road and when someone is bucked off a horse working cattle.

"Most of the people in the area affected are farmers and ranchers. There are obvious inherent risks involved with these professions and lifestyles," she wrote. "Personally, as a mother of three I don't feel safe leaving the house with out a way to contact help if the need arises."

Plentywood volunteer firefighter and farmer JJ French and his wife also “got the boot from Verizon.”

He said sometimes his pager for fire calls doesn’t connect with the nearest tower but his phone will, and the reverse. He uses data for weather reports.

French had spotty coverage with the local provider before he switched to Verizon. The only boon, he said, is that Verizon will waive payments on his phone, which he just upgraded.

Heather Brownfield of Hammond runs a rural mail route with her husband and called the cell phone her “first defense in an emergency.”

On the ranch a couple weeks ago, her husband called to tell her a fire was taking off (it ultimately reached 500 acres). She called rural fire departments and posted to Facebook a plea for help from neighbors before joining the fire line herself, while continuing to use the phone to coordinate with others.

“Had we not had the cell phones, it’s unimaginable how much worse this whole thing could have been,” she wrote.

Jesse Sorenson and family received the drop letter, too, even though some members of the family rarely used the internet on their phones. A Verizon customer service operator told Sorenson and others 19,000 people are being dropped, though a Verizon spokeswoman disputed that number, saying only "a fraction" of that many would be dropped.

Meagan Dorsch told the Tribune on Thursday afternoon that Verizon sent notification letters to 919 customers in Montana who will be dropped October 17. Those customers account for 2,035 lines.

Crystal Higgins, who lives 35 miles south of Ekalaka, said the drop is affecting the whole community. Despite having a Mid-Rivers tower on her property, she has nowhere to move her phone numbers to since they aren't accepting new customers.

"We have nowhere to go with our numbers, and after 16 years with Verizon we may lose our business numbers all together because we can't go anywhere else," she wrote.

Higgins said two of the devices Verizon is cutting service for used .07 GB of data in the last three months, at most. The dropped devices were using Mid-Rivers towers 85 percent of the time.

She has four devices that are still getting service from Verizon, and she asked customer service if they would be safe.

"I was told no because this is only the first phase of letters and that they are eventually trying to get rid of any Verizon customers that use these towers the majority of the time both voice or data because this is not a Verizon area," she said. "These were the words of a supervisor from Verizon not mine, and I'm not the first person to get this response from them."

Public Service Commissioner Travis Kavulla and Sen. Jon Tester have been fielding complaints.

Tester sent a letter to Verizon CEO Lowell McAdams highlighting the critical role cell phones play in Montana, illustrated by the recent wildfire season. He demanded specifics of why some contract were terminated and the impact on customers.

"I am very troubled by Verizon's recent decision to terminate contracts for customers living in rural areas of Montana," Tester wrote. "Given the importance of wireless communications for maintaining public safety, running a business, and staying connected during emergencies, I strongly urge Verizon to reverse its decision to involuntarily remove rural customers from its network."

Sen. Steve Daines also issued a statement: "It's unacceptable that Verizon has threatened to pull their service from rural customers. This is yet another example of the rural-urban divide and choosing a bottom-line over a commitment to Montanans." - U.S. Senator Steve Daines

JaNell Knowles GoodIron of Wolf Point found herself in a long line of Montanans at the AT&T store in Williston, N.D., trying to find a new service provider.

"They were running out of phones," she said.

GoodIron was a customer in different parts of the country for about 15 years and said she's "angry, frustrated and very disappointed in the company."

Scott and Pat Anderson of Whitewater called Verizon after learning four of their six lines would be canceled and were told "we were no longer welcome on the Verizon network. The agent acknowledged that we were long-time customers in good standing; and indicated that they consider their customers as family and would be treated as such."

"Their family treatment plan consists of 'switch to another plan before Oct. 17,' at which time your Verizon Wireless service will be discontinued," they wrote.

Kyle Wasson of Loring said he will probably get better service with the local provider, certainly better customer service, but that running a modern farming operation does require a lot of data. Using the cell phone cuts down significantly on travel to meet with crop insurance agents, adjustors, chemical suppliers, attorneys and on.

"It does take a lot of data for certain aspects of farming and ranching to stay up to speed with markets, cattle buyers and everything we do," he said. "It's hard being rural."

Dropped customer Walter Crantz on the Fort Belknap Reservation said he has other options but "none of them have very good service."

Readers from rural Kentucky, Alabama, Michegan, North Carolina and Wisconsin weighed in as well. Jonny McDobbsy of Custer, Ky., said he "loves how they make it sound like we tricked them and somehow knew we were using data on some other network."

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