System-wide, cell phone failure

I hadn't really noticed the Mike Turner blabbage story having disappeared from mainstream media....

 

Sounds like a good opportunity for Tesla to switch to Starlink. Of course that will probably take years...

Meanwhile, the Google Monopoly has their cell service, known as Google FI, which when used with their Pixel phone seamlessly switches from Wifi, T-Mobile and US Cellular when you're on a phone call to ensure you don't lose a signal. Google TV is also gobbling up massive amounts of market share after spending billions to buy NFL Sunday Ticket from Direct TV, a subsidiary of AT&T.

AT&T is currently a creative destruction operation. The board of directors is clearly boosting profits by not investing in infrastructure and slowly dismantling, transferring and canceling services to boost quarterly profits.

For example my elderly mom in Sacramento area had to switch to DirectTV a subsidiary of AT&T after they shut down AT&T U-verse TV and Mom lost alot of her favorite channels. Then this Fall DirectTV failed to negotiate a new contract that led to no more NBC and now my mom can't watch Jeopardy, which used to be the most important part of her day.

"Since November, more than five dozen TEGNA-owned ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC affiliates have been unavailable on DirecTV via satellite, DirecTV via Internet, DirecTV Stream and U-Verse after a programming contract between DirecTV and TEGNA expired with no new deal in place." DirecTV quietly tests transmitting national NBC feed to offset loss of TEGNA affiliates | StreamTV Insider

In a couple more years when AT&T can't be pilfered for quarterly profits they'll finish with loading it up with all their worst assets and throw it into bankruptcy and walk away with no consequences. If we had laws against this type of corruption, people wouldn't be having this problem.

 

Your elderly mother should start seeing other providers.
There are MANY, especially if she's in the PNW.
"Her favorite channels" might be available on cable, the other bankrupt-adjacent satellite TV provider, or any of a variety of digital providers (the Googles, Hulu, Fubo, etc.)
If you indulge the fantasy that the interwebs, the tweeter machine, or broadcast television are regulated by a government that is 'looking out for you' I invite you to turn on a TV that is not connected in some way to the internet.
Dot.gov essentially butt-raped the public by "improving" OTA broadcast television with the transition to ATSC 1.0 in the early 2000's and they're going for 'repeat offender' status with ATSC 3.0.
HOWEVER (comma!) it is still possible (for now) to use a carefully constructed hunk of metal connected to a piece of copper wire which is still able to be plugged into the rear of most television sets (for now!) and one is able to get LOTS 'free' television, currently in the last days of its relevance.
See also:
Print Newspapers.
I'm no shill for AT&T but since I'm older than 1984 I'm also aware that there's no longer a single provider for telephony, entertainment, internet access, etc.
Those services are generally provided by publicly traded companies, or in the case of Starlink and 'formerly' a private company that no one is compelled by dot.gov to do business with.

Don't like them?
Don't give them your money.

@ cellular disruption/cyber incidents:
All these were fairly well covered by S2.
I arrived at work yesterday and began my investigation by visiting several sites that monitor solar activity (flares and CMEs) and the data are inconclusive, although many of the 'experts' have already opined one way or the other.
As always, AMMV.

I will add to the analyst's comments that the sun is a loooooong way away, unless you're moving really really fast.
Faster even than disinformation.
If you imagine a 'solar event' to be like a shotgun blast aimed at the earth a flare could be represented by the muzzle flash, while the pellets take a little longer to get to the target.
Coinciding cyber attacks with solar flares is a tough thing to do since we're "only" a little over 8 light minutes from Sol.
Timing a cyber attack with a CME is lots easier, since CMEs take a while longer to get here....but......you KNOW they are inbound.
That makes me personally a bit of a tough sell on this being an artfully timed event, but I also lean away from the various service disruptions being naturally caused.
That's just me being me and using all of the breadcrumbs and everyone else has access to.

Physics is agnostic.
Physicists? Maybe not so much.
Solar flares and CMEs affect electromagnetic transmissions in predictable ways, and GPS, Cellular, Communications Satellites, and other RF transmissions operate in fixed, published, and regulated spectrums.

So....
Draw your own conclusions.

I'm thinking that they're unrelated to this incident for other reasons.
Key word:
Nucular.

The Rooskie Nucular Space Weapon story isn't exactly 'trending.'
I had to listen again and use the Googles to remember who the heck Turner was or what he had to do with, or why he has some insider knowledge concerning COMSEC.
As it turns out?
Not much.

He's AOC.
Different polarity.
Perhaps different gender.

Both seem to be unencumbered by humility, common sense, ethics, etc.....

 

AT&T outage caused by software update, company says - ABC News (go.com)

How does that company stay in business?

‎What has happened to ATT's customer service? | AT&T Community Forums

If you ever have a couple of days to waste call AT&T customer service and try to get some competent help.

 

Call or email or chat with darn near any corporation and see what happens.

An anecdote. I am in the market for a replacement oven. I online shopped and saw a model that has a unique feature I'd like to see in person to assure myself that it will work in my space. Doesn't even have to be plugged in. My local dealers don't stock that model but can order me one. I go to the web site of the manufacturer and they direct me to a customer-service contact phone number. I call them and they reply I am only a home owner and so that division doesn't deal with 1 off buyers and I must go to their customer service-division that deals with people who are only buying qty 1 of a $4k item. All I want to know is where can I see one on display. I call that next contact and they say they can't help me and suggest I call all the retailers in a several hundred mile area and when I ask if they have a distributor who would know what models are displayed where the phone disconnects.

And I love the other $3k kitchen item I bought from the same manufacturer earlier this year. I could see that one at my local Lowes store.

GE or really the largely Chinese owned Haier company that bought the Haier, Casarte, Leader, GE, Fischer and Paykel, Aqua and Candy brands.

How can they sell these models if they don't show them? And how can they show them if they don't know where they are shown?

 

Your experience makes one appreciate good customer service when they receive it.

 

mrs b has been on at&t for 15 years. enough is enough. the service is okay, but the price is ridiculous.
when we get home, i'm looking into t mobile or verizon visible.
i inherited at&t stock from my dad at $40. i sold half right away because he was top heavy in communications.
but i still have a lot, and the dividends are good, ive lost a ton of value, especially when they spun off warner bros discovery. i should have sold it all, the dividends likely won't last

 

Just recently updated our kitchen range with a similarly priced unit. Wandered over into the induction range area given the state of the electric grid and continuing climate change. I settled on the GE brand after a meticulous search which included finding the one I wanted at a local appliance store. The oven has the usual bake, broil, roast and adds convection and also an air fry feature that works quite well. Very pleased with features and performance. I am also a Google Fi customer for 8 years now. The outage was transparent to this user. I was on wifi the whole time although I did notice considerable lag in serving up web pages all that day.

 

It was interesting to hear how the air fry feature works.

We air fry food often and wondered how the air fry feature works on these new ovens.

Those ovens that have the features described in your post - convection, air fry, bake, broil and roast are very intriguing appliances for a kitchen.

Did you feel you got a good value for your money as far as price?

 

My first experience with the air fry craze. This one looks like all the rest, a stirring fan centered in the back that addresses food placed towards the back on the middle rack. You use the next lower rack position for larger batches. I don't know yet if it is any faster than standard baking. Time will tell.

The price of everything has gone up significantly post-COVID. Couldn't compare against long-term numbers, so I comparison shopped with several other competitive brands. The prices were all ball-park, but this was a Black November deal. Like Black Friday only the whole month of November. That made the appliance protection plan warranty extension affordable. There were some troubling reviews describing failures just outside of the manufacturer warranty. Hope we don't see any of that.

 

I'm intrigued by the side opening door model. Tired of reaching over a 400 degree hot door. Unfortunately, those models don't seem to have two things I'd like, simultaneous display for the heat and timer situation for both ovens and the air fryer. And what the heck is Advantium? Their marketing is an abomination. No videos showing/selling features, functions, benefits.

 

at&t is crediting customers $5. for the downtime

 

Beats a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

The.....um.......'error'.....sidelined my phones for less than an hour - so that sounds about right.
Usually when something like this happens there's a class-action suit with a billion dollar award and by the time that the lawyers get paid - a customer will get a coupon worth about $0.35 - in post Biden-inflation adjusted USD.

 

In our area - phones down for about 6 hours - 911 service disrupted for a good part of the day. Residents, Businesses, Hospitals and Public Service were all affected.

I don't want the money I realize problems happen- however:

1.AT&T should have fessed up immediately and put out a public service announcement about their Service being down and the reasons why - as well as a probable time span for the downtime length.
2. AT&T should have procedures in place to test software backups before they are rolled out
3. AT&T should have back up plans A,B and C available and prioritized to deal with circumstances like this.
4. The Government Agencies should have been immediately bought into AT&T's inner circle and been working parties during the outage and privy to all situation updates.
5. An immediate update should have been issued to all AT&T Customer Service Representatives to share the problems, resolutions and time frame for countermeasure implementation with AT&T Customers.

I feel certain the only reason AT&T fessed up to what the real problems were was that Homeland Security, the FBI and the Government all got involved. They had no choice but to fess up, their backs were against the wall and the Feds were going to get to the bottom of it.

AT&T's reputation for incompetence, poor Customer Service and utter disregard for its Customers precedes itself and makes this a very difficult and public embarrassment to recover from that only serves to reinforce the publics image of their Company.

 

Our T-Mobile phones were apparently unaffected. We had been with AT&T for many years but got tired of poor reception at home. We switched to Verizon, which gave us a slightly better price but no signal improvement. T-Mobile wound up costing even less and we finally have good signals at home.

 

Every case is different. We were unaffected, but someone doing business could lose a fortune during a disruption

 

Lots of businesses in our area lost a ton of money when Frontier took over from Verizon for internet several years ago. Most of the Tampa Bay area was without internet for over 24 hours while Frontier tried to get their foot of their you-know-what. As a result, everyone who could tried to use cellular data which jammed the cell towers.

 

Xfinity mobile was down for a couple days. Off, nothing, no mobile phone, no internet. No money back.
ATT brought in a huge semi truck with a giant antenna for its customers. Some Bucks to do that. It was in a parking lot, I walked by while they were setting it up.
I guess the mobiles share a tower somewhere that blew down. I was thinking of switching to ATT after seeing them step up.