South Jacksonville Officials Say Poor AT&T Cell Service Is Out of Their Hands

By Benjamin Cox on January 13, 2023 at 9:10am

The Village of South Jacksonville says the problem with AT&T’s cellphone service in the village is now out of their hands.

Trustee Todd Warrick said last Thursday that he’s washed his hands of the situation after AT&T representatives failed to appear at a village board meeting that Warrick says they promised to attend a few months ago: “They didn’t show up to a meeting. I went and tried to help them find a place to put [a new tower]. I really did. I went out on a limb, and I was trying to find them a location – AT&T. They are the ones that have the problem here and they know it. I can explain to everyone what the problem is and why there is an area of a circle around here that doesn’t have service. I’m not going to get into that. It’s an engineering problem. [The AT&T representative] didn’t show up to a meeting like they said they were going to, so I washed my hands of it. I’ve told them, ‘You guys are on your own.'”

Warrick says the search to find suitable property to place a new tower in the village is up to the company’s engineers. He says it will at least be a year or longer after that site selection for the new tower to get the new tower into service due to the supply chain and licensing.

Village President Dick Samples says that he and Warrick went above and beyond to help AT&T find a suitable site: “We found two places within 200-300 yards of where they wanted to put it. They want it on [the village’s] ground, okay? We found places right across from it off of our ground in the middle of a field, and they didn’t want anything to do with that. Now, if it’s a matter of the tower being 20 feet lower, build your tower 20 feet higher. Again, we are getting way beyond what we should be talking about here, because we’re not AT&T.”

Village officials say if the public has continued complaints about their AT&T service, they should contact Chris Warwick of AT&T whose information is located at Village Hall.