[flagged]
Or could just be related to this: https://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=318230
Cellular outage in U.S. hits AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon users
121–130 of 486 posts
Re: Cellular outage in U.S. hits AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon users
#122This is so odd. I have two phones with AT&T currently sitting right next to each other. One has service, the other is in SOS mode.
My wife and I were riding in the car next to each other. Took mine about 5 to 10 minutes longer to jump to SOS mode.
I wonder how SIM registration works? For example if it's like a token with an expiry. If some set of registration servers on the network couldn't renew then I could see behavior like this.
Re: Cellular outage in U.S. hits AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon users
#123Checking in from the Northeast (north of Albany, NY) and can confirm no cell service at all this morning (ATT)
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Re: Cellular outage in U.S. hits AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon users
#124My wife has a Samsung Z fold 3 and she has service. I have an iPhone with eSIM in the same house and do not.
Me and my wife have the exact same iPhone with the same AT&T setup. Also on the same latest iOS version. She doesn't have service at our house, I do. Bizarre.
Re: Cellular outage in U.S. hits AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon users
#125Middle Tennessee only getting SOS on iPhone (AT&T).
Same thing two blocks away from AT&T HQ in Dallas. Yes, I rebooted.
Re: Cellular outage in U.S. hits AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon users
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does it still show bars in SOS mode? Or is SOS just “I dunno can’t see no cell towers but maybe it’d work?” I wonder if the MVNOs that piggyback on AT&T are showing down also. If not, it’s some AT&T service authorization system that exploded.
On the latest iPhones, SOS mode is the emergency fallback to satellite service. It's really meant to be used in situations where you're well outside of any sort of service area but you have a clear, unobstructed view of the sky. Your iPhone will instruct you on where to point and help you track an emergency satellite that is manned by live humans who will take your emergency request and relay it to the proper people.…
I’m pretty sure that “SOS only” can also mean the phone seeing networks it can’t register with but which it could make an emergency call on if required. This predates satellite SOS.
Re: Cellular outage in U.S. hits AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon users
#127”with some of those impacted unable to reach 911 emergency services.” How can one carrier going down affect your ability to make emergency calls?
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/08/centu...
I like that they used this 1850's era tech during the outage: https://www.wbur.org/news/2018/12/30/911-outage-fire-boxes-b...
Re: Cellular outage in U.S. hits AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon users
#128Interestingly, I'm on an MVNO that uses AT&T and have no issues.
Interesting. I'm also using an AT&T MVNO, but I am affected.
Re: Cellular outage in U.S. hits AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon users
#129Is the outage always reflected by how many bars? I have ATT yearly prepaid and currently 3 bars, which is about normal for current area..
Re: Cellular outage in U.S. hits AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon users
#130I'm trying to decide if I am surprised or not that something like this relies on a single central point of failure. (well I assume it's a single point of failure given how this appears to have happened nation wide all at once) You would think that a nation wide cell service would be more distributed and that it wouldn't all go down at once like this. But maybe there are some good enough reasons that there needs to be…
Not necessarily a single point of failure. There could be standby servers that were promoted to primary when the primary failed, then fell over with the huge spike in load. Or they were load balanced, multiple failed, and then the others tipped over.
In those cases, there were mitigations, but the failures cascaded.