Disaster recovery plan for storms

1) Don't know, some obviously.

2) Don't know, but unlikely

3) Pretty much never.

AT&T will not make such statements here, unless they can copy them from publicly available support articles, so you can try Google.

Been out of service since May 16th... 1000% certain no AT&T trucks will roll on a Sunday.... Again just sad what AT&T has become

GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND

….and even more

When does AT&T 1) authorize overtime 2) bring outside staff to help 3) provide temporary hotspots to help customers that have been impacted by a natural disaster

Been out of service since May 16th... 1000% certain no AT&T trucks will roll on a Sunday.... Again just sad what AT&T has become

Overtime is automatically authorized on techs scheduled days of work, a 10 hour work day is the expected… 50 hour week which starts from the beginning of the shift at the garage and ends when the tech is back at the garage. I would estimate average drive time per day is 90+ minutes but remember working some 12 hour days when total drive time was 3+ hours.

Outside staff, loaners from other areas, happens quite often after hurricane events or other large scale disasters.

Most loaners are scheduled for three weeks when out of town with first and last day being travel days as often coming from different states. ATT pays to place these techs in hotels during their loan out time plus per diem for food. 

Business service accounts with SLAs will have priority over residential services, after tornado could take one to two weeks to restore services after infrastructure is safe to work on, which means poles replaced.

ATT has some COWs (cell on wheels) and drones that can be dispatched to provide emergency cellular service, of course this requires techs/operators to man these devices. The large the areas damage results in fewer areas that can be helped.

I believe after hurricane Katrina (2005) primary recover time was about 18 months, with loaners and overtime.

edit… concerning Sunday and holidays tech work force schedule is between 15% to 20% of techs… an area / market(2 million population at 2.5 people per address for total number of locations of 800,000)  with say 8 garages, 2 crews per garage and 15 techs per crew (think military structure) is 240 total techs thus expect 35 to 50 techs working on a Sunday. In our Midwest Milwaukee market that is 6 counties or southeast Wisconsin, of course there are other providers besides ATT also covering these addresses including local cable, CenturyLink, Frontier and TDS depending on particular addresses. 

Thank you for extra details... if what you describe above is true that's great. Unfortunately every live person i've spoken with since May 16th at AT&T has not said anything even remotely close to what you are describing. And the Technicians on the ground have said no outside employees/contractors from other states are here... and no overtime is being scheduled. I have been able to get a Tech Supervisor's cell phone but it won't matter because nobody is writing a check. The FCC and Stankey's office is the only way to get someone to change and for action to take place.

how many days of NO Service is worthy of extra resources to be assigned?

I'm a former AT&T employee as well (1990-2000) but my current experience doesn't seem like how we use to handle "outages"

f what you describe above is true that's great. Unfortunately every live person i've spoken with since May 16th at AT&T has not said anything even remotely close to what you are describing. And the Technicians on the ground have said no outside employees/contractors from other states are here... and no overtime is being scheduled. 

Then you are not in a Disaster Recover area but a normal storm recovery situation. What specific issue are you experiencing since May 16th concerning your service outage?

Do you have Aerial Fiber Optic Cable? 

Dave

who decides if it is a Disaster or Normal Storm?
Houston Storms (called a Derecho) hit May 16th -- Power was out for 6 days for me. May 22 is when AT&T thinks the clock began. (ticket's first update basically saying no power and unsafe - which i understand)

Aerial Fiber -- Yes.  we have had no Broadband or Uverse TV. They now tell me they are remotely testing the fiber to see why the light is not strong enough for service. Just a total joke....I will have a new answer on monday, a new one on tuesday and so on

Initially over 1M without power and someone at AT&T said 250,000 without Broadband.... and because nobody has broadband the 5G Cellular in my area is like having a 1200 baud modem.... useless.

I have been going to the AT&T retail store that is .7 miles away to work, and they have 300mb Up & 300mb Down...  my 5G is .75 up & .75 down useless

who decides if it is a Disaster or Normal Storm?

It starts with your local city officials, then the County, and then the State will ask the President to include X number of State Counties in a Disaster Declaration.

You might not want to hear this but residential Fiber and TV services are not a Disaster at any level. Power and Water / Sewer service are priorities. 95% of all utility poles are owned / managed by the local Electrical Utility. No additional services can be recovered until the Utility releases the areas to the Pole space lease holders.

If you depend on Internet for your WFH income then you might consider renting a Shared Office space until your AT&T Fiber is restored.

Dave