Storm Causes AT&T Outage Across Midwest

dstates writes "AT&T left users across several Midwestern states without cellular phone service yesterday. The outage apparently resulted from a power failure at a Michigan switching center and spread to affect level3 Internet communications. The powerful windstorm also left 400,000 users without electricity. Interestingly, except for a few reports in Chicago and Indianapolis papers, AT&T has managed to keep this out of the mainstream media. Widespread communication failures also followed Hurricane Ike in Texas earlier this year. With the increasing trend for users to drop landlines and rely only on cell phones, this is becoming an emergency preparedness issue." Yes this included me. Still does. At least my office still has power — maybe we'll just camp here tonight. :)

Comments

Roaming?

[girlintraining]

The problem isn't the cell phone network per-se, but rather the inability of these providers to peer with each other. AT&T may have been down, but what about T-Mobile, the other GSM provider in the United States? When a major failure like this occurs that locks out only some cell phone users in a given area, the problem is not technology but politics.

Why, given how critical cell phones are during an emergency, this is allowed to continue is beyond me. Congress seems to care more about protecting corporate profits and reputation than providing a robust cellular network for its citizens. Hey, homeland security, are you listening? Fix this.

Re:Roaming?

[zappepcs]

BTW, besides those rescuers you see on television after a storm, remember that there are ordinary heroes sitting in a truck babysitting a generator, or climbing poles, or renting a snowcat to get to the tower site so that your phone will work when you want it to. They are suffering the elements, usually alone, and bear the responsibilities of ensuring your comfort with little or no thanks. They are up all night watching the weather, planning and preparing to go babysit that tower(s) so your phone or pager will work. They work almost tirelessly for the simple comfort of knowing that when the shit hit the fan, the equipment they are responsible for did not fail. They are little appreciated on a normal day, and unseen during the emergency, but it is their dedication that you count on and not the system or the company.

Re:Roaming?

[Shakrai]

I would love to see the part of the Constitution that says "Congress shall provide a robust cellular network for its citizens."

Don't worry -- someone will come along sooner or later and twist the interstate commerce clause until they manage to come up with that interpretation. Remember, all parts of the Constitution should be interpreted as liberally as possible, except the 2nd amendment of course. That clearly provides for a collective right and doesn't apply to the states.....

Re:Roaming?

[Shakrai]

Does this kind of situation explain why we in North America are a little bit "behind" Europeans and Asians when it comes to the "cell phone" and exploiting its maximum potential?

No. All this situation relates to is which networks you are allowed to roam on. Europe works much the same way. If you have Deutsch Telekom phone you probably aren't going to be able to connect to and use Vodafone's network in an area where DT has native coverage. Why should they pay Vodafone a per minute rate for you to roam when they have a native network in the area where you happen to be?

I hear the "cell phone" elsewhere in the world is capable of so much more than simply making calls and texting, which are the bulk of what we use cell phones for over here.

*shrug*, we have a smartphone market. I haven't been in Europe for a few years but the last time I was over there I was actually disappointed with the state of 3G. It's probably better now but when I was in Europe their 3G offerings weren't any better than ours.

Japan and South Korea are different animals -- they are a full generation ahead of Europe and the US and people use their phones for all manner of things over there. That's as much cultural as anything -- how many Americans don't even see the point of SMS let alone internet browsing? Most people I know with phones regard them as phones and don't care about the extra features.

Re:Roaming?

[JWSmythe]

    Several years ago, I was driving across the country from Florida to California. I was only a couple days behind a hurricane that had made a mess. No, it was way before Katrina.

    Every hotel along I-10 for hundreds of miles had utility trucks from all over the place. I usually drive at night to avoid traffic, and I know these guys need to at least get a little bit of sleep. I know the utility guys get sent out from all over the place to fix problems induced by bad storms. It never really hit me that it wasn't just a few hundred sent, but an entire army. I would stop at hotels, and they would tell me that they were completely booked up because of the utility guys. Not just their hotel, but every hotel in the city. "Try the next town, 50 miles down the road." It's not like they were hogging the rooms, they were stuffed in. One guy per bed, and a guy or two on the floor. This is our civilian army, that keeps things working after a disaster.

    Unfortunately, all the general public knows is "they don't have my power on yet.", even though it is an army working hard to repair everything. People like instant gratification. They think it should be a light switch fix (hit the switch, it works).

    It's a job I wouldn't want. High voltages, dangerous weather, and long hours.

If All You Have Is a Cell Phone...

[littlewink]

then you're out of luck. Most landline phones have independent power and will work in an emergency. That's one reason I always have a landline.

Not conspiracy, but AT&T has not been forthcom

[neapolitan]

I would argue that the OP has a point. I am a doctor, was on call (I'm not kidding), and missed several important messages due to my cellphone going out (my blackberry just silently stopped receiving all work mail, all internet functions went dead, full 3G signal but "tunnel failed.") Granted, there is a lot of redundancy in communications, so my pager later started going off with a lot of people saying "where are you???", and I then called them on a landline.

I thought it was my phone, rebooted 3 times, and only today did I find out that it was a national outage (saw here, confirmed all over the net.) I think AT&T should just have sent a free txt saying "We are having problems" or made an large scale announcement via voicemail, which would have helped me (and others) plan. I was about to get a replacement phone from a friend and plug my SIM into it.

The point is we start to rely on these devices, and blackberries, for better or worse, are used for very important things in business, health care, and otherwise.

Re:Not conspiracy, but AT&T has not been forth

[ceejayoz]

If AT&T's service was down, how would they send you a text or voicemail?

Re:Will AT&T repay me for the days my service

[macx666]

The inability for AT&T's datacenter in Michigan to have power backups that can last more than a day should hardly be considered a natural disaster.

I'd love to see something happen in terms of getting money back, but somehow I doubt most subscribers care enough to push for it.

New News and Wireless Service

[mpapet]

The summary is full of *very* misplaced expectations regarding wireless service.

A. There was never an expectation that the service would ever be plain old telephone service (POTS) quality. Thinking otherwise just sets you up for disappointment. Telco's pretty much hate POTS because it was designed and regulated to be extremely reliable. Get a POTS line and move on.

B. ATT doesn't care if individuals go without service. A few hundred thousand users having downtime for hours is nothing because it can be blamed on an "act of God." They care if they have to go before their regulators because that costs campaign contributions.

C. I have a bank of dial-up modems as the very last line of defense in our NOC for just this reason. We deal with messages, so it would work in a bad situation. Not ideal, but I'll take it and our customer's PHB's are generally pleased we think that carefully.

POTS is good. Long live POTS.

Thats all a nice homespun story and all but..

[Viol8]

.. if "the company" didn't pay them, they wouldn't get out of bed. Lets not pretend they're up those poles out of the kindness of their hearts.