Major cellular outage

FastEddieB

FastEddieB

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Lenoir City, TN/Mineral Bluff, GA
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Fast Eddie B
Karen and I are camping near Plant City, FL. This morning neither of our iPhones on AT&T have service - they did last night - showing “SOS”, which in an emergency can send out a signal via satellite. Weirdly, our iPads using cellular are getting a strong cell signal, which is how I’m sending this out.

Googling indicates this is a widespread problem involving multiple carriers. Anyone else affected?
 
FastEddieB said:
Karen and I are camping near Plant City, FL. This morning neither of our iPhones on AT&T have service - they did last night - showing “SOS”, which in an emergency can send out a signal via satellite. Weirdly, our iPads using cellular are getting a strong cell signal, which is how I’m sending this out.

Googling indicates this is a widespread problem involving multiple carriers. Anyone else affected?
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Yessir. It's definitely messing up my day as well.
 
No issues for the Wife and I on AT&T, but there are many of our employees having issues today. It's not limited to any particular carrier that I can tell.
 
My phone has been off-grid since yesterday afternoon.
 
my phone is ringing the exact same amount as it does without an outage
 
FirstNet went down, then in a cascade, sections of ATT, Verizon and T-Mobile have gone down too.
 
So should I load up the AR for when the Russians start dropping out of the sky?

In all seriousness, WTF is going on?
 
Jim K said:
So should I load up the AR for when the Russians start dropping out of the sky?

In all seriousness, WTF is going on?
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Reading a few articles online there hasn't been any mention of cause...
But it's the longest AT&T outage I've seen as a customer of 17 years; I'm guessing it wasn't as simple as some newbie tripping over the power cable at HQ.
 
We pay extra to activate the cellular on our iPads - maybe $15/mo each? Though in most cases we could use our phones as hot spots, it’s really convenient and today it’s really paying off.

Still weird that enough of the network is up for the iPads to work fine in spite of the “outage”.
 
ArrowFlyer86 said:
Reading a few articles online there hasn't been any mention of cause...
But it's the longest AT&T outage I've seen as a customer of 17 years; I'm guessing it wasn't as simple as some newbie tripping over the power cable at HQ.
Click to expand...
I've seen the news articles claiming that it's just AT&T, but it's not just AT&T. Some of my family doesn't have any cell coverage right now, either, and they're on Verizon and T-mobile networks via USMobile.
 
SkyChaser said:
I've seen the news articles claiming that it's just AT&T, but it's not just AT&T. Some of my family doesn't have any cell coverage right now, either, and they're on Verizon and T-mobile networks via USMobile.
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I haven't seen anything stating that it was just AT&T, but that they had the most users affected. I know US Cellular, T-Mobile, and Verizon are also affected, but reportedly in lower numbers than AT&T. Makes you think it has something to do with a particular software version/frequency band.
 
Nothing works. Every single system relies on MFA security is effectively locked out.

I've been trying to explain this to our IT security people ever since they implement this MFA nonsense....finally, perhaps they'll get the message that relying on a mobile device for secure logins is a terrible concept.
 
SoonerAviator said:
I haven't seen anything stating that it was just AT&T, but that they had the most users affected. I know US Cellular, T-Mobile, and Verizon are also affected, but reportedly in lower numbers than AT&T. Makes you think it has something to do with a particular software version/frequency band.
Click to expand...
I was thinking something similar about software or something like that, but a couple of my siblings have identical phones and one of them has signal and the other doesn't. And they live in the same house and are on the same plan.
StraightnLevel said:
Nothing works. Every single system relies on MFA security is effectively locked out.

I've been trying to explain this to our IT security people ever since they implement this MFA nonsense....finally, perhaps they'll get the message that relying on a mobile device for secure logins is a terrible concept.
Click to expand...
I was having issues with this exact thing about a month ago, because I am effectively out of cell coverage in our new place and my phone was refusing to use wifi calling and texting. I could sometimes get signal if I put my phone in a certain orientation on a certain windowsill, but having to use my phone to get into accounts or confirm things was brutal.
 
StraightnLevel said:
Nothing works. Every single system relies on MFA security is effectively locked out.

I've been trying to explain this to our IT security people ever since they implement this MFA nonsense....finally, perhaps they'll get the message that relying on a mobile device for secure logins is a terrible concept.
Click to expand...
Multi factor auth is an absolute necessity these days for any kind of important accounts. I say that as someone who had my stuff hacked and spent the better half of 3 months trying to recover 2 accounts.
But I prefer using a TOTP authenticator. Not required to have internet/cell coverage for it to work.
 
Pilawt said:
What if my vehicle's extended warranty expires before this gets fixed??
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"You could be on the hook for costly repairs!"

In other news, my local police department has put out a statement kindly asking our local Einsteins not to call 911 to test their cellular connection.
 
OMG it has started.!!

Everyone head to the hills.!!


Other news, I am showing 3 bars. I usually get 0.5 to 1 bar signal.
 
Cellular service is back.... but now my home internet is down. Sigh.
 
ArrowFlyer86 said:
Multi factor auth is an absolute necessity these days for any kind of important accounts.
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Yes, but mandating that it be your mobile phone with no other option is a terrible restriction.

I maintain a separate e-mail address just for MFA, and try to avoid dealing with companies that will not allow me to direct MFA requests to that email account.
 
MFA isn't nonsense. The fact that we need it is.

We prefer authenticator apps over texting.
In most cases, if you're logging into something that requires MFA, you'll already have a connection that the mobile device can use.


StraightnLevel said:
Yes, but mandating that it be your mobile phone with no other option is a terrible restriction.
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Depends on the situation.
 
....and.....it's back. Here comes the flood of SMS messages.....
 
SkyChaser said:
I was thinking something similar about software or something like that, but a couple of my siblings have identical phones and one of them has signal and the other doesn't. And they live in the same house and are on the same plan.
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This is exactly what's going on in our house right now. My wife and I have identical phones on the same plan. I got service back a little while ago, she still does not.

Of course she's the one waiting for a doctor to call her back about some test results. Naturally.
 
Skyrys62 said:
MFA isn't nonsense. The fact that we need it is.

We prefer authenticator apps over texting.
In most cases, if you're logging into something that requires MFA, you'll already have a connection that the mobile device can use.



Depends on the situation.
Click to expand...
1) I've had too many situations trying to work either while airborn or internationally where I can get WiFi for my laptop, but can't get a mobile call or SMS message. Delta's WiFi, for example, limits you to one device connection per flight, so no bueno for MFA in-flight. About a month ago I was in central Europe at a supplier and found that my AT&T international roaming for some reason didn't work in that particular nation (still don't know why). These are just two examples out of many - MFA is fine, but forcing it to a single mobile number is just not a good solution.

2) I don't want every single company I do business with to have my mobile number. I intentionally prefer to restrict that information, for multiple reasons.
 
StraightnLevel said:
1) I've had too many situations trying to work either while airborn or internationally where I can get WiFi for my laptop, but can't get a mobile call or SMS message. Delta's WiFi, for example, limits you to one device connection per flight, so no bueno for MFA in-flight. About a month ago I was in central Europe at a supplier and found that my AT&T international roaming for some reason didn't work in that particular nation (still don't know why). These are just two examples out of many - MFA is fine, but forcing it to a single mobile number is just not a good solution.

2) I don't want every single company I do business with to have my mobile number. I intentionally prefer to restrict that information, for multiple reasons.
Click to expand...

Authenticator app won't use your cell number. Texting would.
You can also have a series of codes generated by the authenticator you can store and use when you have no other access options.
 
And btw..
I hate it too. Really don't like giving my email or phone number to any entity anymore. Plus we're in healthcare, so the number of times we have to MFA is ridiculous. Some companies are requiring it for every single login, some let you go days/weeks before it expires.
Customer support is also a major time suck. But, MFA ain't going away anytime soon.

Also, (especially for traveling), there are security keys/fobs.
Thanks to the greedy and dishonest people, nothing is easy anymore.

Bah..I need a Snickers now.
Or maybe just go fly, but it's storming here.

1708627305257.png
 
Skyrys62 said:
Authenticator app won't use your cell number. Texting would.
You can also have a series of codes generated by the authenticator you can store and use when you have no other access options.
Click to expand...
That's great. Please tell me how I can get Chase Bank to direct my MFA request to the authenticator. Similarly, we use a variety of managerial applications that require MFA at every login, and that's dictated by the application provider, not our company.

And yeah, the crooks screw it up for everyone else.
 
Chase only offers token as an alternative to text/phone calls, as far as I know. If you use their mobile app on a phone with biometrics, that is quick and easy, but not always feasible.
 
kaiser said:
Found the cause!!
View attachment 125743
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Fun story...quite a few years ago a disgruntled but knowledgeable comms worker cut a major fiber trunk in the Bay Area in an act of sabotage...it took down everything across almost every carrier and ISP...land lines, cell, data, internet, ATMs...everything electronic and communications ground to a halt for the entire day...took them quite a while to find the problem and make the repairs...recall driving an hour outside the Bay Area just to get in contact with clients for some emergency work calls.

The entire system really still is two cans and a sting...it is just faster strings today.
 
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