Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Fire At AT&T Facility Causes Outage For Over a Million U-Verse Fiber Customers In Texas (wfaa.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the too-hot-to-handle dept.

New submitter JustChapman writes: Local Dallas/Fort Worth WFAA is reporting a major outage of AT&T U-Verse fiber internet, due to a lightening strike at a switching facility in Richardson, TX. Apparently the strike took out primary and secondary power systems, setting fire to the building. One commenter states a representative allegedly said that 1.5 million customers are currently without service.

9 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. Yup, it's been a stormy afternoon here... by bobbied · · Score: 3, Funny

    Thank the maker I don't have AT&T as my ISP, but it remains to be seen if I have internet at home.

    However, given AT&T's past transgressions, Somehow it makes sense that the Maker is mad with ATT and struck them with lighting.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    1. Re:Yup, it's been a stormy afternoon here... by GoTeam · · Score: 2

      Sadly I do have U-verse TV and internet. Seemed like a great deal for 1Gb internet service. Service at the house has been down since 10:30 this morning. They won't even attempt to provide an ETA on repairs or service restoration. What kind of tech company doesn't have a redundancy plan? Ohhhh, AT&T isn't a tech company. My bad.

    2. Re: Yup, it's been a stormy afternoon here... by backtick · · Score: 2

      Youâ(TM)re not paying for redundancy at the POP level. You said yourself it seemed like a great deal, indicating price was one of your major drivers. 99.99% of end users donâ(TM)t want to pay what redundancy costs for the small amount of outages, especially now that everyone has a cell device which can handle 10s of Mb/sec as a âfall backâ(TM). If you really need wired redundancy, have a cable company put in a line, and manage that with a router with prioritization. You donâ(TM)t want to pay for that? And thereâ(TM)s why itâ(TM)s down right now.

      Sorry, but thereâ(TM)s a point at which ATT, Comcast, etc have to limit their redundancy options to manage costs for the majority of their customers. If youâ(TM)re an outlier in your redundancy needs, pony up to get it, using ATT as one leg of a multi-leg solution.

      Heck, itâ(TM)s not hard to set up a cell plan as a hot spot for most devices, so bridge your WiFi to your cell (or your spare cell, since you need redundancy, right? And that cell isnâ(TM)t normally being used, so itâ(TM)s charged and ready when your dies or fails? Seems perfect to use it as a hotspot as a backup option for the few hours or days the carrier is down).

      Iâ(TM)ve spent the better part of 3 decades designing redundant systems, and at the end of the day, on a large or small scale, they cost something; end users have to decide if itâ(TM)s worth paying more, and the suppliers have to decide if itâ(TM)s worth losing business as a result of raising their prices to fund the increases. In this case, UVerse is likely âavailable enoughâ(TM) for enough customers that ATT has a business justification to not make things more redundant, and if you have a justification to need them more redundant, you likely have some options to do so, at a cost.

    3. Re: Yup, it's been a stormy afternoon here... by GoTeam · · Score: 2

      Great story. I do have a mobile hot spot with unlimited data that I use when I travel or in case of an outage. I can watch TV on any of my mobile devices, or connect them to the TV and watch whatever I want. It's not about me and what I have. The problem is a large "tech" company thinks it can shove all of their services for a large population into one building. They can do it if they want, but it will cost them customers. If they decided as a company that losing a bunch of customers is fine, then hey, we all win. They stay in business with a smaller customer base and I get a more dependable service provider.

    4. Re:Yup, it's been a stormy afternoon here... by bobbied · · Score: 2

      Sadly I do have U-verse TV and internet. Seemed like a great deal for 1Gb internet service. Service at the house has been down since 10:30 this morning. They won't even attempt to provide an ETA on repairs or service restoration. What kind of tech company doesn't have a redundancy plan? Ohhhh, AT&T isn't a tech company. My bad.

      I just heard a local report on this.. Apparently the building burned pretty badly and the Roof collapsed. Unless they have a totally redundant system in some other location, which I find improbable for a host of reasons, it's going to be a LONG time before this gets fixed. IF customer wiring goes though this building (which I find HIGHLLY likely) I'm going to guess it is going to take a lot of time to rewire everything to some new location.

      In short.. I'd be asking AT&T to let you out of any contracts based on their inability to provide services and find another provider in your area BEFORE the rush starts. (I.E. Call Spectrum, NOW, before they run out of equipment.)

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    5. Re:Yup, it's been a stormy afternoon here... by sjames · · Score: 2

      Not to worry, with their extensive redundancy in the critical departments, the bills will go out on time and the legal staff is at full power.

    6. Re: Yup, it's been a stormy afternoon here... by kenh · · Score: 2

      I like on DFW, and I've had inverse for a year, and so far this outage has gone 12 hours, or half a day.

      Network reliability is measured in "nines", as in "5 nines", which means the network is available 99.999% of the time.

      2 nines is 99%, or about 90 hours of downtime per year.

      3 nines is 99.9%, or about 9 hours of down time per year.

      4 nines is 99.99%, or about 1 hour of downtime per year.

      5 nines, the holy grail of availability is about 5 minutes of downtime per year.

      Right now, U-Verse is at about "3 nines", perfectly acceptable for consumer internet service. Few consumers are willing to pay what would be required to deliver 4 nines availability.

      --
      Ken
  2. Lightening by rrohbeck · · Score: 2

    Not what you think it is: https://www.dictionary.com/bro...

    --
    thegodmovie.com - watch it
  3. lightening vs lightning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Lightening is where you lighten something up that's dark such as a photo in digital photo editing software.

    Lightning is the high-energy burst that almost rivals a nuclear bomb, causes audio compression (i.e. a thing called "thunder"), and can start building fires even if the building is properly grounded.

    Hopefully, this has been enlightening for JustChapman. Get a dictionary!