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Cellular outage in U.S. hits AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon users

cnbc.com

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Re: Cellular outage in U.S. hits AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon users

#391

Post by wepple »

jader201 wrote: post #276

Something I'm not seeing discussion on: What is/were the cascading effects of this, particularly for drivers? Many people in buildings were unaffected, as they could fallback to wifi. But I imagine this had a pretty broad impact to drivers. Just a few things I can think of: - Packages delayed (UPS, FedEx, Amazon, truck drivers, etc.) for drivers that relied on their phone's mapping apps to get them to their deliverie…

> Maybe larger companies have their own infra for this, or have redundancy in place (e.g. their own GPS devices)?

Modern trucks have cell modems tied to a private APN that are used for updating vehicle firmware & doing telematics. They also typically have a route to the internet that provides a WiFi hotspot in the cab.

Depending where the fault was in the telco stack, that APN may have still been functional

Not saying this was a significant resolution, but at least a possibility.

Re: Cellular outage in U.S. hits AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon users

#392

Post by EvanAnderson »

relbeek2 wrote: post #137
testfrequency wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t have anything positive to add, except noting that FirstNet is also down. I’m sure there’s a lot of chaos for emergency responders right now :/

> FirstNet is also down CNN reported that AT&T confirmed it has not been impacted throughout this event. https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/att-outage-02-22-24/i...

FirstNet absolutely went down in my locality (western Ohio, near Dayton). I was on shift for after hours support of a public safety answering point (AKA a 911 center) and I received a call at 04:14 Eastern stating that all the law enforcement/fire mobile units on FirstNet disconnected from the VPN and that no FirstNet cell phones could make/receive calls or send/receive text messages.

Re: Cellular outage in U.S. hits AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon users

#394

Post by silisili »

jader201 wrote: post #276

Something I'm not seeing discussion on: What is/were the cascading effects of this, particularly for drivers? Many people in buildings were unaffected, as they could fallback to wifi. But I imagine this had a pretty broad impact to drivers. Just a few things I can think of: - Packages delayed (UPS, FedEx, Amazon, truck drivers, etc.) for drivers that relied on their phone's mapping apps to get them to their deliverie…

What about those mobile card readers like you see in small businesses and food trucks and such? I've never owned one, but assumed they ran over cellular.

Re: Cellular outage in U.S. hits AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon users

#395

Post by Johnny555 »

GravityLab wrote: post #387
jader201 wrote: post #276

Something I'm not seeing discussion on: What is/were the cascading effects of this, particularly for drivers? Many people in buildings were unaffected, as they could fallback to wifi. But I imagine this had a pretty broad impact to drivers. Just a few things I can think of: - Packages delayed (UPS, FedEx, Amazon, truck drivers, etc.) for drivers that relied on their phone's mapping apps to get them to their deliverie…

We need to maintain paper-based systems of information storage and retrieval. People should be familiar with a physical map. If we are too dependent on the technology, that is a risk.

Just keeping the paper isn't a solution, people need to know how to use the back up, and use it regularly. When I delivered pizzas, we had a big paper map of the city that we used to consult for deliveries, drivers quickly learned where nearly all of the streets in the city were and how to get there. For most deliveries, drivers just knew where to go, for the rare times I didn't, I either remembered the main street near my delivery or wrote down some notes on the box. Someone marked new streets on the map, as well as the names of major apartment complexes.

Just having that map on the wall isn't going to do any good since without regular use, no one's going to be able to use it effectively. And it's doubtful that people can be forced into using it.

Re: Cellular outage in U.S. hits AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon users

#396

Post by AlotOfReading »

dfadsadsf wrote: post #390
offmycloud wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPS on most cell phones uses data connection to download current satellite data in order to decrease the time from cold start to GPS lock. Lack of cell or WiFi can cause GPS to take 5-15 minutes to "search the sky" and download satellite data via low bitrate channel under poor signal conditions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GNSS Edit: You can think of it as a CDN for the GPS almanac.

That’s just not true for modern phones. I use iPhone on hikes without cellular connection and GPS lock is instantaneous. Organic Map app is great for hiking.

You're talking about something very different called a hot start. The GP is discussing time to fix in a cold start scenario. You'd only see this on a phone that had been powered off for months, or "teleported" hundreds of miles away. In this scenario the receiver has to download the new time, new ephemeris data, and a new almanac (up to 12m30s in the worst case) before it can fix. Depending on the receiver, there may also be a delay of several minutes before it enters cold start mode.

If the receiver has recently (last few days) gotten a fix and hasn't moved too much from that fix, it'll be in at least warm start mode. It still needs to download ephemeris data, but this usually takes 30ish seconds to fix.

If the receiver has seen a fix very recently (last few hours) or a recent network connection, it can fix from hot start like you saw, which only takes a few seconds and may not even be observably slow depending on how the system is implemented. Phones go to great lengths to minimize the apparent latency.

Re: Cellular outage in U.S. hits AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon users

#397

Post by Johnny555 »

danesparza wrote: post #304
panarky wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also can't login to sites that require SMS 2FA.

Well ... let's be honest: SMS 2FA shouldn't be a thing. TOTP or stronger, please.

Isn't that what passkeys are suppose to be? Better and stronger than passwords with TOTP?

Re: Cellular outage in U.S. hits AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon users

#398

Post by teeray »

Diederich wrote: post #385
Animats wrote: post #331

This is a serious architectural flaw. In the entire history of electromechanical switching in the Bell System, no central office was ever out of service for more than 30 minutes for any reason other than a natural disaster, or, on one single occasion, a major fire in NYC. The AT&T Long Lines system in the 1960s and 1970s had ten regional centers, all independent and heavily interconnected. There was a control center,…

In this context, what's the physical scale of a 'central office', as far as regional dimensions? Thanks!

Well, one is a skyscraper filled with equipment near the Brooklyn Bridge IIRC.

Re: Cellular outage in U.S. hits AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon users

#399

Post by rezonant »

dfadsadsf wrote: post #390
offmycloud wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPS on most cell phones uses data connection to download current satellite data in order to decrease the time from cold start to GPS lock. Lack of cell or WiFi can cause GPS to take 5-15 minutes to "search the sky" and download satellite data via low bitrate channel under poor signal conditions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GNSS Edit: You can think of it as a CDN for the GPS almanac.

That’s just not true for modern phones. I use iPhone on hikes without cellular connection and GPS lock is instantaneous. Organic Map app is great for hiking.

The sibling response here covers all of the points I would say. Scott Manley has a nice video covering the history of GPS and how it works, well worth a watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ7ZAUjsycY

It's not as simple as you think.

Re: Cellular outage in U.S. hits AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon users

#400

Post by tharkun__ »

Scoundreller wrote: post #378
bostonwalker wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is putting it mildly. The Interac network went down and no one could use their debit cards nationwide.

I'd put that on Interac single-homing itself without redundancy. Their ops are critical enough you'd expect better from them. Not the kind of shortcut Canadian banking takes for core stuff.

The funny thing there is that Interac "did" have redundancy i.e. another network provider to fall back onto.

Unfortunately they failed to notice that this was a reseller for Rogers lines.

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