More than a month after a storm knocked down a Verizon cell tower off Charter Boulevard near Piedmont Macon North hospital, service is still uneven around Vineville Avenue and Forsyth Road. Verizon has put a portable, vehicle-mounted cellular tower in the hospital parking lot, but the permanent fix remains unfinished.
That delay matters because this is no longer a one-day outage. It is a lingering Verizon outage for people trying to work, call and get through the day in the area. Kailee Rowland said there is a hole in service that stretches down Forsyth, while Emily Turner said it is hard to make calls when not on the WiFi in the office. Taylor Braswell said she cannot get service heading toward Wesleyan College or farther north near Tattnall Square Academy.
The tower came down in late May during a storm, and Verizon says the temporary setup is meant to keep coverage steady around the spot where the tower once stood. The company also said a taller tower should improve service once the work is complete. For now, though, the problem is not a lack of effort so much as a lack of a finished repair.
Verizon said it is working with the landowner on the site and that the site owner, not Verizon, is responsible for completing the work. In the meantime, the company said no definitive timeline has been established for the permanent tower replacement and that it remains in ongoing communication with the site owner. That leaves the same question hanging over Macon: how long a temporary fix can substitute for a tower that is still not back in place.
