KERN COUNTY, Calif. -- Eleven call boxes are out of service on Highway 155 between Highway 65 and Lake Isabella. Call boxes that are down are covered with black plastic bags.

The area is not covered because of the service outage spanning about 22 miles. According to Greg Palomo from the Kern Council of Governments, the county's service with Verizon is not working in the area of those 11 call boxes, so they will be switching to AT&T within the next month.

Each call box is described by Palomo as a "cell phone on a poll." Each poll will have to get a new number.

When the phone is picked up, it's routed to highway patrol as a Priority 3 call, according to Palomo. Although emergency services are called from the phone, Palomo says these call boxes are "not an emergency call box network. It's a motorist-aid system. We're not like 911."

Since the problem has been addressed to the Kern Council of Governments they say they have been doing everything they can to get the black bags taken off the phones and get them back up and running.

"We provide this service to the county, so we want to get this going," Palomo said.