WFMJ.com News weather sports for Youngstown-Warren OhioPhone problems in Warren affect about 2,000 customers including government offices

Phone problems in Warren affect about 2,000 customers including government offices

WARREN, Ohio - Since early Monday morning the city of Warren's government offices and others have had no phone service.

According to Century Link, the phone provider, about two thousand customers were without their land-line service on Monday.  And what was an inconvenience for some cost others hundreds of dollars in sales for the day.

If you called Warren City offices, you heard a busy signal on the other end of the line.  But along with city offices, about two-thousand other customers in Warren had no way to communicate or reach loved ones. "Ironically enough, the phone company, Century Link, is working on an upgrade and it failed," said Warren Mayor Michael O'Brien.

Warren City employees were forced to use their cell phones to conduct business, but the mayor was thankful that despite the phone problem, emergency calls to 911 were able to get through.   "Thank goodness we have the 911 in Trumbull County, because if not for that we would not be able to get a hold of the police department," O'Brien said.

 But the loss of phone service resulted in a loss of sales to the tune of approximately 700 dollars for the Sunoco gas station at West Market and Tod. There was no way to pay at the pump because phone lines control credit card transactions and the ATM. "A lot of people use credit cards nowadays, because of the safety of carrying around money and if you can't use your credit card then you're not going to shop at that business," said Jill Sweet the manager at Sunoco.

The phone provider, Century Link, has been working on the problem all day. The mayor is just concerned about how long it's taking to correct the problem.  "We are essentially going to go through the whole day with no phone system," O'Brien said.