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A Nationwide Comcast Landline Outage is Affecting Thousands of Businesses (theverge.com)
Comcast's Xfinity phone service is apparently suffering a massive outage today, knocking out phone service for thousands of companies across the country that still largely rely on landline access to do business. From a report: According to DownDetector.com, Comcast phone service began experiencing issues around 8AM ET this morning and by the afternoon, areas around the country have started reporting disruptions. The areas most affected appear to be the Pacific Northwest, California, the tri-state area, and Florida. The official support Twitter account for Comcast Xfinity's residential and business services has acknowledged the issues, tweeting at 1PM ET today that some "customers may still be experiencing an issue with their Voice service," though Comcast has yet to release an official statement regarding the issue.
I've just been on the phone with Comcast for over 2 hours. This is from Chicago down to Florida and spread all over. I have locations that I take care of across Georgia and Florida and every single Comcast location is affected. VoIP and landlines alike. They can't even forward the lines I need forwarded because their system has locked the Voice team out of that function.
This is the second time in, what?, 6 months or so that they've been hit with a vast, multi-state outage. We depend on fax lines (yes, still the most secure form of communication when it comes to HIPAA and related issues - plus the easiest to train/utilize), and my company will be missing everything from our affected locations for 4+ hours. Tens of thousands of dollars in immediate jeopardy with much more in possible losses to come.
Want to bet we won't even get a credit on our next bill? Ma Bell might have been a bastard monopolistic company, but copper lines in the ground had better up-time than a lot of what I've witnessed moving to VoIP and such technologies. Now get off my lawn, you're standing on the fiber lines.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
I work at 9-1-1.
EVERYONE should have a landline, even if you never use it. The day you need it for 9-1-1, you'll be glad.
See, it's not just the reliability of landline...it's the instant and infallible (mostly) address lookup.
Any other calling service, IP phones, VoIP software, cellular, radio, satellite...you have a slim chance of the address appearing instantly on the dispatcher's screen. A few seconds can be the difference between dying and living. Also, FYI many calls include a caller who CAN'T say where they are due to suffering, bleeding, screaming, fear, being chased, burning flames, etc. YOU WANT YOUR ADDRESS TO APPEAR AUTOMATICALLY.