AT&T Data Outages Hit Midwest, AT&T Says Nothing
Rick in Chicago wrote to us this morning to let us know that he hasn't been able to access AT&T's 3G network all day. So far, AT&T has told him nothing, nor have they made an announcement: "text messaging still seems to work, so they could send out a text message to let people know ," he IMs us. He got confirmation that it was the network and not his company-issued phone from his company's tech department. This blog says it's 3G and Edge, while this blog says its UMTS that's down and disabling Treos and Blackberries.
Rick points out, "My problem is that AT&T isn't communicating anything—I would be strung up at work if I handled major outages this way."
(Thanks to Rick!)
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Comments:
I can confirm that at the very least the Edge network is down. I haven't been able to screw around at work on my iPhone all day!
The CSR I called said it was actually nationwide and affects both the EDGE and 3G networks. She also said there was no ETA at this time.
My CrackBerry hasn't received an email (Chicago) in hours. I called AT&T. They said they were investigating, but I don't know if they "were taking it seriously."
Then again, no emails isn't necessarily a bad thing.
My AT&T DSL here in Ohio was down for at least 5 hours today! It's especially rough since I work out of my home.
It might work in Moscophilacrackfrisco, but in SE Michigan, not so much.
No ETA given, and this a week after I dumped Verizon. I think it's Karma.
I'm also in Chicago, and my entire company has been unable to use our Blackberries all day. Wouldn't be so much of a problem if it wasn't our quarterly retreat . . .
ha! that picture is hysterical.
From our ATT rep:
Update:
Valued Customer,
This e-mail is to inform you of a network problem that MAY affect your Mobile Service.
Trouble Ticket Number: TT000006071127
Severity: 1-High
Description of Issue: Degradation of GPRS/UMTS service
Location of Issue: All Regions; All Markets and surrounding areas
Start Time: Jan 31 2008 05:41 AM PST
Symptoms you MAY experience: Some customers may experience gaps in coverage or difficulty connecting to the network.
*UMTS data connections are failing for ISP.cingular and WAP.cingular
Estimated time of repair: Unknown
Technicians are working towards resolution as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause. Thank you for your patience as we work towards resolving this issue. If you have any questions, please contact Enterprise Technical Support at 888-334-3787+PIN for more information.
Yeah last night for a little bit my cell phone said "emergency calls only." I am in northwest Indiana.
FWIW, I've been using the Edge network all day with no problem in the Twin Cities area. Well, Edge seems kind of slow, but it could just be my perception since I use my iPhone with wifi 90% of the time.
EDGE came back online about 25 minutes ago. Was out for 8.5 hours, now i need to calculate how much AT&T should credit for the outage.. might not be worth the amount of math that would take.
In Bethesda and DC all day with no problems. Hopefully it won't follow me home tonite.
I was without edge. It started not long after 7:30 a.m. CST and ended around 2 p.m. CST.
GPRS is working in Baltimore. Will check 3G in an hour or so.
Our company was told service would be restored by 2pm CST and it appears to have been. No data service was available -- had 22 messages on my Moto Q after it returned.
Here in Madison, WI my Edge connection (GPRS) has been down all day. It was flaky yesterday as well. Just checked and its working again! Woohoo!
it'll be around $0.64 if you are using the $60.00 tethering plan, is it really worth the effort? I'm all for consumer rights but to throw a fit and complain about wanting a credit back on a network that isn't perfect and is going to go down from time to time is just pathetic. Do you call the electric company for a credit when you have a power outage too?
Data just came back for me (3G) in PA
@Krychek--There's a difference between power and cell phone service. With power I'm only paying for what I use, with phone I'm paying for "unlimited" meaning there should be no limits, including outages.
I am in Bloomington, Illinois (about 120 miles south of Chicago) and I couldn't place a call on my 3g phone from 8 to about 10pm last night. I was trying to figure out if something was wrong with my phone, and I watched the network cycle through tri-band, Edge, and 3G about ten times. Thanks to this, I missed a party, a dinner invite, and some fun time with the girlfriend. Thanks ATT, the only reason I'm not too miffed is that I don't have a relative in the hospital, or was waiting to hear something crucial from a job
although i would appreciate a free text explaining why my phone went down ...
www.chicagotribune.com had an article about the outage with a statement from an AT&T official.
This article was posted this morning, I believe and was updated throughout the day.
So there.
It's out AGAIN here. (Indiana, but Chicagoland area). Just data, not voice.
@stpauliegirl: That's odd... it was dead for me on Cathedral Hill in the AM and dead most of the day at work in Nordeast. Came back up at about 4:00 pm or so.
Weird, in Chicago and I haven't had a problem (which is actually odd) accessing email or internet on my Blackjack. But my ATT phone plan is based in Madison, Wi. if that makes a difference.
It was up and down all day in philly, nj and nyc as well..
I work at an ATT store and we only found out because we called in to generate a ticket to have the techs look at our problem.
Have no idea if this is related , but at about 4 am central, my dialup internet connection (dont laugh) dropped me & I couldnt get oneline for hours (I eventually gave up & went to bed). I use vtisp.com (based in Vermont I think) as my isp. & never had a problem like this before.
I live in Evansville, IN (right near where KY, IN, and IL meet) and do field work for a bank. The cingular/att celphone that dispatch gave me could receive text messages and i could make calls, but no one could call me, none of our branches in Kentucky had long distance, and two of them had dead data curcuits.
We had a huge line of winter storms roll through, and from what an ATT tech told me, a large fiber line went down, and a piece of fiber routing equipment was destroyed in a fire. Murphy's law in action.
I was wondering why EDGE wasn't working on my iPhone since this morning.