Att And Outage -- Engadget

att,outage posts

Apple: Jailbreaking encourages cell tower terrorism, "catastrophic results"

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Jul 29th 2009 at 12:37PM

If trashing your push messaging wasn't enough to steer you clear of using your iPhone in unauthorized ways, this next bit of news might have you back on the straight and narrow. According to Wired, Apple's latest salvo in the fight over jailbreaking is a claim that pernicious, iPhone wielding techno-hackers at home or abroad could modify the baseband and use it to attack cellphone towers, "rendering the tower entirely inoperable to process calls or transmit data." Of course, the idea that this would become more likely if the legal status of jailbreaking changes is totally absurd, but why let that stand in the way of a legal argument?

In a related note, one of our editors (whose jailbroken iPhone shall remain nameless) got a strange baseband pop-up error this morning -- the very same morning that AT&T is suffering a "massive connectivity outage" throughout the northeast and midwest. Coincidence? Yeah, probably.

Read - iPhone Jailbreaking Could Crash Cellphone Towers, Apple Claims
Read - Anyone Experience the AT&T Outage?

Say it ain't so, AT&T: reports of another East Coast data network outage

by Tim Stevens posted Jan 6th 2009 at 9:19AM

Were you hoping to spend the day glued to your iPhone or BlackBerry, keeping an eye on our live Macworld coverage while in the office? If you've got AT&T on the East Coast, you'd better make sure your wireless data connection is operational. Just like in September we're getting a number of tips from people on the right side reporting outages and error messages when attempting to connect. Meanwhile we're not finding any issues out here in SF or Vegas, and the Midwest appears to be going strong after last week's shenanigans. We've pinged AT&T for deets, but let us know -- what're you seeing on your end?

Update: We still haven't received official word either way, but by the sounds of it data is back up for at least most of you. We'll keep after AT&T for some sort of confirmation.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Is AT&T down for you?

by Nilay Patel posted Dec 28th 2008 at 3:17PM

We're getting way too many tips on AT&T being down for it to be a coincidence -- how's it going for you? Both EDGE and 3G are pretty spotty for us at the moment in Illinois, but they're working in NYC, which jibes with reports of a Midwest-specific outage, but we're also hearing there are troubles nationwide. We've pinged AT&T for an official statement, but in the meantime let us know if things are working for you wherever you are.

Update: Still haven't heard from AT&T, but we just rolled back into Chicago at 5PM CST and we can't connect on either EDGE or 3G. Let's hope things get better, and soon.

Update 2: According to AT&T, a power failure in Bloomfield, Michigan is the culprit, and techs are working around the clock to get everything back up in the Midwest. We're told rebooting phones may help -- it didn't do anything for us, but it might be worth a shot.

Update 3: It's back up, at least in Chicago. How'd everyone spend their day off-grid? We mostly threw the sad face at our NO SERVICE display.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Down for everyone or just you? AT&T experiencing a major data outage on the East Coast.

by Paul Miller posted Sep 3rd 2008 at 9:45AM

Ruh-roh. AT&T's wireless data service seems to be down in a major way, at least on the eastern half of the country. We're seeing problems with both Edge and 3G from places such as Boston, New York and St. Louis. It's primarily iPhone users pinging us on this, and in AT&T's forums, but we're guessing it's not just limited to them. How is it looking for you?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: We've just spoken to AT&T and they've told us they're "aware of the reports." We'll keep our ear to the ground and update as soon as we have more.

Update 2: AT&T now tells us that it all came down to a "routing issue" in the Northeast that was patched up at 11:56AM this morning. For what it's worth, BlackBerry and text services were apparently unaffected -- but we doubt that's much consolation to iPhone users in withdrawl.

More AT&T wireless outages?

by Ryan Block posted Feb 3rd 2008 at 1:14AM

We've been receiving a steady stream of tips from users around the country today reporting that AT&T, which supposedly just got back up from some apparent sporadic outages spread across the nation, was (is?) back down again today. We haven't seen or heard much, and have yet to confirm whether things ever even fully came back up at all, but what say you? Still experiencing issues? We'll let you know what we hear back from AT&T -- as you may have heard, we had them build a Batline to Ralph's office for just such an occasion.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

AT&T wireless data outages hit the Midwest, other areas

by Paul Miller posted Jan 31st 2008 at 12:13PM

We're getting reports from all over that AT&T customers are having trouble with 3G and EDGE data. A majority of the complaints are coming from the Midwest / Chicago areas, where things seem to be down entirely, but we've also heard from folks as far away as Florida. Team Engadget hasn't hit any snags in New York or Vegas where we're currently situated, but let us know if you're having troubles wherever you might be -- and what color crayon to use for this fancy "threat level" printout we've got pinned to the wall.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

AT&T having wireless data issues today?

by Chris Ziegler posted Aug 14th 2007 at 2:41PM

We're getting reports that AT&T customers have gone without their precious bits and bytes for at least part of the day today. It's unclear what the problem is or how widespread it may be, but it seems that folks in a number of metropolitan areas are unable to connect or are suffering with unusually slow data rates. Anyone out there notice anything fishy?

[Thanks, Michael K.]