To travel agents at Century Travel on Desert Inn Road, having their telephone service shut off unexpectedly was like having a lifeline cut.
"We're a travel agency and our business depends on being able to communicate with our clients," said Ed Saltzman, an accountant with the company. "It was a mess."
How big a mess it is may not be determined until Monday for customers of a small local telephone company leasing lines from Southern Nevada communications giant Sprint.
Colorado River Communications (CRC), which provides local exchange telephone service for between 500 and 600 residential and business customers in Las Vegas, had its service shut off by Sprint for failing to pay its bills. The company leases 800 lines from Sprint, but some customers have multiple lines to their homes or businesses.
About 400 lines were shut off Wednesday and Thursday before government regulators asked Sprint to give CRC a reprieve. The small company now has until Monday to resolve the problem with Sprint.
CRC officials say the problem is a billing dispute with Sprint that has been unresolved for three months. The company could not confirm the amount of the dispute, but other sources said it was as much as $250,000.
Detra Page, a spokeswoman for Sprint in Las Vegas, said her company followed the normal procedures it has for any customer that doesn't pay its bills. She said after 30 days, CRC was notified that it was in arrears; after 60 days, Sprint stopped hooking up new CRC customers; after 90 days, it pulled the plug.
"It's something that doesn't happen very often with companies that lease lines from us," Page said.
But a CRC spokeswoman who declined to be identified said Sprint cut most of the company's customers off without warning, leaving businesses like Century Travel in the lurch.
Among the first lines to be cut were the executive offices of CRC, so the company was unable to inform customers of what was happening.
Ironically, CRC is now recommending that customers who were cut off this week go to Sprint for dial-tone service because it can assure a start-up within 48 hours while the 21 other active local exchange phone companies operating in Southern Nevada can't do it for seven to 10 business days.
With CRC and Sprint at an impasse and a growing number of CRC customers finding their phones dead, officials with the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada were asked to step in.
Rick Hackman, manager of the consumer division of the PUC, was asked to broker a deal between CRC and Sprint that would allow those customers that already have been shut off to be restored and to prevent any others from being cut.
"I'm acting as the middleman," Hackman said. "Basically, the companies are attempting to determine how much (money) CRC must come up with to give Sprint the comfort level it needs to keep the phones operating. We've gotten Sprint to postpone terminating any more phone lines until Monday and they've agreed to restore service to the (CRC) business office so they can talk to customers."
Hackman said the only resolution to the problem appears to be for CRC to come up with enough money to satisfy Sprint.
"The companies appear to be doing the best job they can to cause the least disruption possible for CRC customers," Hackman said. "Sprint clearly is in the driver's seat on this because they have been telling CRC for months that there was a problem."
CRC's spokeswoman would not elaborate on the basis of the company's dispute with Sprint.
Hackman said he has received "several dozen calls" from consumers concerned about the sudden shut-down. He confirmed today that all lines that were cut off are dead -- even 911 emergency service isn't available for customers who were disrupted.
"CRC is just like any other phone customer of Sprint's," Hackman said. "If you don't pay your bills, you lose your telephone."
The CRC spokeswoman lamented that her company has suffered a double-hit from the incident -- not only has the company lost the confidence of its customers, but customers are signing on with competitors just to get a phone that works.
In the meantime, Hackman agrees with Century Travel's Saltzman: "It's a mess."
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