Internet glitch costs small business thousands

TULSA - We found Pat Boll on the phone with AT&T, trying to get his business internet connection up and running again, after it quit working three days earlier.

Like so many businesses, the internet is Midwest Publishing's lifeline.

"It's very important because we collect all our orders over the internet, we've got an international business, we have world wide customers and it's difficult to call them."

Pat found out what caused the problem during his first call to AT&T.

"Called to see what the problem was, after about an hour I found out the line had been disconnected per a disconnect order they say was in place since May."

Strange, Pat says, since they had never asked to be disconnected.

Besides, if the disconnect was ordered in May, why was in only happening now in late August?

"It's just a tremendous pain."

Luckily, Pat says the next door business let them run an internet line to one of their computers, so they could get some work done.

Still, Pat says three days without full internet service, was costing the business a lot of money, some $3,000, and costing him as office manager, too much time.

And he was told it could at least another couple more days before their service was reconnected.

"Here it's 2 and a half days into the week and I've only spent 30 minutes on what my job would actually be."

After Pat contacted the problem solvers, we called AT&T.

We found out that strange disconnect order from May was keeping the system from reconnecting Midwest Publishing's internet service now.

But an AT&T spokesperson told me they'd make Midwest Publishing's internet service a priority.

And a couple of hours later, it was up and running again.