WiFi Down
When the power came back on after the hurricane, the internet didn’t. For one customer, what followed has been a days-long trip through AT&T’s customer service maze: three chatbots, one in-store manager, and a call center on the other side of the world, each telling a different story.
- Nobody could say when service would return, or whether the problem was a customer’s equipment or the company’s network.
This is one customer’s account, but it is far from isolated. Neighbors across the Pensacola area report the same experience with AT&T and Spectrum, formerly Cox Media. As the recovery drags on, the question is no longer why the internet is down. It is why the companies that provide it are so hard to reach when we need them most.
Power came back. The internet didn’t. And AT&T, it turns out, has no one to tell us why.
A Customer’s Tale
I have AT&T Fiber, and when my power was restored, the unit was not responding. For two days it said there was an outage in my area. Then, on Friday, it said there was no longer an outage. I rebooted it twice. I did a reset as well. Nada. So I got on my app and asked the AI chatbot for help. The chatbot wishes me to refer to her as Andi. But I know she is a chatbot. Andi had me reboot again. Andi had me reset again. Nothing.
This took some time because it does this hokey “working on it!” thing and this “digging deeper!!!” thing, when you know full well it is not digging deeper or working the issue, just wasting my time.
So Andi says I am offline. What do I do now? Andi says I have to talk to someone, which I can’t do from the app. Why not? Andi doesn’t know.
So Andi sends me to the website, and the website says there is not an outage in my area. The website chatbot has no cute name. That chatbot had me reboot again and reset again. Then it tells me I am offline. It says I need to chat with a human, but I can only do that between 6:00 AM and 9:00 PM CST. It is now 6:45 AM.
So I type, “It is 6:45. Why can’t I speak to a representative?”
It said the information it gave me was incorrect and I CAN speak to a representative.
Growing frustrated, I just call the number.
Here I am faced with chatbot number 3. It says there is no outage in my area. It says I really need to go to the app and do this. It tries to get me to reboot again. It tries to get me to reset again. I am now angry. I want to speak to a human.
The chatbot says I am offline. It asks if it can text me information about my issue. Okay. Whatever.
It sends me a link about my issue. I open it only to find an advertisement for the new iPhone.
I am now officially furious. I didn’t have power for five days. I have not slept or eaten a good meal. I am not at my best.
The chatbot asks what else it can do for me. I say, “Die.”
So then I do what any good Gen Xer would do. I ask my Gemini AI, “Why does AT&T AI suck SO BAD?”
My dear, faithful Gemini says this:
- It Isn’t Real AI. It’s a Keyword Filter
Despite being marketed as “AI,” much of the system operates like a glorified decision tree or rigid keyword matcher.
- Instead of dynamically understanding context, tone, or multi-step problems, it scans your input for exact trigger words (like “billing” or “upgrade”).
- If you explain a complex, nuanced issue, the system gets confused, defaults to pre-scripted canned answers, or loops endlessly.
- Deflection Strategy (“Cost Reduction”)
For large telecom corporations, customer support call centers are one of the highest operating expenses. The chatbot’s primary job is deflection: resolve basic requests automatically, or get you to give up and use self-service options on the website before you cost them money by taking up a live human agent’s time.
- Deliberate Friction to Human Gatekeeping
The system is deliberately designed to make reaching a live agent difficult. The bot will often push you into verifying identity, checking KB articles, or picking from restrictive drop-down prompts multiple times before it even considers routing you to a human. When it finally does transfer you, it frequently routes you to the wrong department, forcing you to start over.
- Legacy System Silos
AT&T’s backend infrastructure is a sprawling mix of legacy systems (wireless, fiber internet, legacy landline, DirecTV/TV accounts, prepaid). The bot often lacks unified cross-system access, meaning it can’t see full account histories, real-time ticket status, or specific order tracking details without glitching.
Then I did the second thing any good Gen Xer would do. I asked Reddit how to get around it.
The consensus was, just go to the damn store.
So I went. I went 45 minutes early to make sure I was in line when they opened at 9. There was already a line of over a dozen people at 8:15.
I was behind an older lady and her husband. She had her unit (the same unit I have) in her arms. She HAD gotten through to a human, she said. The human had told her she had to come to the store.
When they opened, they told everyone they had to check in. She told them she had an appointment. They said they didn’t care, she had to check in. So this poor woman, after all that, had to wait for 12 people ahead of her, even with an appointment and arriving early.
We flopped on the couch and waited for thirty minutes. Somehow, the lady managed to grab a manager walking by and asked him about her problem. It turned out to be my problem too, so I went over to listen.
The manager responded as if he were dealing with an out-of-control Karen, when in fact the woman was polite enough, just not waiting her turn.
He told her he couldn’t do anything for her. The store has nothing to do with internet. He doesn’t have any replacement units. He doesn’t care what they told her on the phone. He said the app was telling people their service was restored when it wasn’t. So maybe nothing is wrong with her unit, who knows?
She asked what she was supposed to do now, then. He said he could give her a phone number to call, but she had to wait her turn and then he would give her the number.
When she didn’t like that answer, he said, “I can’t do anything about the internet. The power was out. My power was out, lady!”
I stepped in and explained that I was having the same issue. The reason everyone is frustrated is that we have been in an endless circle with the app and the website, been told incorrect things, and now he was saying something different again.
He didn’t care. The lady stormed out.
I waited another thirty minutes and was given the phone number to talk to a real live person. I used their phone. (The guy who helped me was totally nice. He got me the line and dialed for me because he knows the right prompts to get a human.) I was placed on hold for another twenty minutes and then got a call center person somewhere in Asia.
She told me to go to the unit and she would help me reboot it. I said I am not home. I have done all that over and over. I don’t know if it is my hub or some other problem. I just don’t have internet, and I want to find out what to do.
She said she could set up an appointment with a technician. I said okay. She told me that if the unit is broken, I will be charged $150 for them coming out. I said okay, it’s not broken. That isn’t even my real issue. I just want someone to talk to me who knows something.
She set up my appointment for two and a half weeks from now. I said, “Really?”
She said, “You had a hurricane. Everyone is having problems.”
And here is the issue. Everyone is having problems.
No representative of AT&T has been at the county emergency operations center. There have been no press releases. I have seen no trucks. There have been no social media posts saying, “Hey, sorry your internet is down, we’re working on it.” There is nothing on the app. There is nothing on the website. No communications at all. They aren’t even talking to their store employees, apparently.
Here is something else I asked Gemini: “Who is in charge?”
The Chief Executive Officer of AT&T is John Stankey, who has held the role of CEO since July 2020 and was also elected Chairman of the Board in early 2025.
According to AT&T’s regulatory SEC disclosures and proxy statements, his annual compensation breaks down as follows:
- Total Annual Compensation: Approximately $29.9 million
- Base Salary: $2.4 million
- Stock & Equity Awards: ~$19.5 million
- Incentive & Non-Equity Performance Bonus: ~$6.27 million
- Pension/Deferred Benefits & Perks: ~$1.7 million
This total compensation puts the CEO pay ratio at roughly 215 times that of AT&T’s median employee.
And apparently, there aren’t a lot of employees. They sure as hell have hired no one in Communications. There are no skilled humans who can actually help their customers. There is just a crappy chatbot and some people in India, probably being paid slave labor.
What is wrong with this country? You have management that makes $30 million a year, and they don’t want to pay a living wage to hire employees who can actually live in their community and help their neighbors.
Gemini says: The Chief Communications Officer at AT&T is Krista Pilot.
She joined AT&T in January 2023 to oversee global corporate communications, media relations, internal communications, and reputational strategy. Prior to AT&T, she held senior communications leadership roles at major global brands, including PepsiCo.
I would have to make a public records request to determine her salary, but Gemini guesses it’s around $3 million. So she can afford to get her happy ass on a direct flight to Pensacola, because we have ’em, and talk to us like a human being.
From what I am hearing, my neighbors are having the same problems with Spectrum, which used to be at the EOC when it was Cox.
Almost exactly the same thing happened with us. 10 days after the hurricane, trying to find someone to let them know the AT&T internet box is no longer connected to the house and is in the front yard was impossible. They just kept saying the internet would be restored in 6 to 12 hours. I guess they didn’t say WHICH 6-12 hours. At any rate, last night after waiting 5 hours for a callback and after they checked our account to see if any upgrades were available, and after they let us know there were outages in our area, they said they CAN’T send someone to replace the hardware that is no longer attached BECAUSE there is an outage in our area and they want to see if the internet will resolve when the outage is solved. Which is clearly not our issue. I let them know that some people do have internet in our neighborhood. He said they may have a different connection, to which I replied that if a tech came out and installed the hardware, we might know whether our connection was good or bad. Bottom line: they don’t know whether there is actually an internet issue or if random people in the area have no connection. Lovely. We let them know to transfer us to a sales/disconnect person, which he did, and it was a recording saying they aren’t open and to call back in the morning. HORRIBLE service. Idiots.