The Telephone Miracle Man

by John Fleming

 

At one time I had my cell phone programmed so that I could switch it to a Mexican number when I crossed the border. It worked very nicely. But after years of processing many words and of being dropped countless times, it went deaf. I tried to get it fixed so I could keep the Mexican number. After all I had it on all my business cards, my letterhead, and my Web sites.

I wandered all over Puerto Peņasco looking for someone who could repair it without losing my phone number. But there was nobody.

The next option was for me to get a new phone with the same number. But when I got the phone, I was told that my old number was still in use, so they couldn't give it to me for my new phone. I said, "But I have the number. I just want to transfer it to a new phone." They said, "The number is in the phone." Then they asked me for the contract for that number, so they could transfer it. Naturally I couldn't find the contract. So there I stood with this deaf telephone that I couldn't fix, and without the proper paperwork to move the number to a new phone.

So for two months I wandered around Puerto Peņasco with this deaf telephone in search of a repair man. Everybody could call me, but I couldn't talk back. Romeo, my office manager, loved it.

Then I found Francisco. He flipped open the lid, took out his magnifying glass, pushed around a few wires, handed it back to me, and said, "Here it is." It took him about 4 minutes to do the surgery, and my poor deaf phone could hear again. Hallelujah! The world could again listen to my voice.

Francisco is Francisco Orozco Delgadillo, owner of Network Communications, right next to the big Sherwin Williams sign on Blvd. Juarez. He is also the owner of stores in San Diego, Tijuana, La Paz, and Guadalajara. He was born in Mexico but grew up in San Diego--a perfect example of the bilingual, bicultural border citizen of two countries.

When I asked Francisco how he had become interested in telecommunications, he told me that when he was about 10 years old, he broke into and took apart his parents' phone to see how it worked. He has never looked back.

Francisco has an engineering degree in telecommunications from San Diego State University. For three years he worked in hotel and motel telephone service before starting his own business in San Diego in 1985. His family helped and supported him, and various relatives are operating his stores in other cities.

Francisco came to Puerto Peņasco several months ago and opened the store here. His aim is to provide good service to his clients, and I can see that he is doing it because every time I've stopped in at his store, I've found him busy helping someone. In addition to telephones, he sells phone cards, alarm systems, 2-way dishes, and high-speed 802.11B radios.

And he performs miracles on deaf cellphones.