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My Prison Switched to GTL For Video Visits 2 Months Ago and It Still Doesn’t Function Properly
Every week we sit and wait for a visit that isn’t going to connect and no one has an answer as to why.
The header photo is the screen Demeter sees for about five minutes each week while she waits to see if the video visit she’s scheduled is going to connect with the prison’s end of things. We try to have a little hope that maybe this week, it just might, even for a couple of seconds. A second of two of connection is better than nothing, especially since we’ve not had any visits since December 7, 2023.
That was our final video visit hosted by the state before they allowed GTL/Viapath to take over video visits for our facility. This isn’t the first facility in the state where that company hosts the video visits, so I guess they thought it would be an easy transition.
They couldn’t have been more wrong.
I have no idea what the problem is. No one seems to be able to answer that question. GTL/Viapath blames our facility. Our facility blames them. The administration claims to speak to them daily in an attempt to rectify the situation. Who the fuck knows. All I know is, I haven’t been able to look at my wife while having a conversation with her in close to two months.
Our first attempt lasted about 15 seconds or so before the connection was lost on my end. So, I was able to see her face, and she could see mine, I heard her speak, then boom, disconnected. The second attempt lasted about a minute. Same issue. Subsequent attempts were worse, with no connection with video at all, just a black screen like the one in the header photo, without the text, no faces, just disconnection immediately.
Two weeks ago, I never made it down to the visit because the guard on duty refused to pop my door, so Demeter got this message:
After waiting for five minutes beyond the visit time, when no one pressed the button to connect, it timed out and told her the visit was missed. Of course, since she hadn’t heard…
