outage posts
We've gotten more than a handful of tips about T-Mobile's data service being down to be a coincidence, from a number of different regions of the US -- Kansas City, Cincinnati, Minnesota and Cleveland, among others. We've asked T-Mo for an official comment, but in the interim let us know if you're having problems accessing mobile web or email.
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?
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.
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?
Apple's Push-like MobileMe launch has been such a debacle that they're now in damage control mode. As a result, some poor soul has been tasked by Steve Jobs to post status updates "every other day or so." The first update is already revealing:
It's hard for us to be sure about this stuff for sure in the early stages, but since last night we've gotten a flood of reports from readers that BlackBerry services are down on T-Mobile and possibly also Bell Mobility (if not other providers). What's the story, are you having any trouble? Shout it out in comments -- if you are, do us all a solid and leave your location and provider. Even if it's just an isolated outage, you know you desperately need to get your act together when Palm, of all companies, is taking potshots.Having some BlackBerry troubles? You're not alone, we've been receiving some sporadic tips on the subject, and some forum users have reported outage trouble as well, though for other users it seems just fine. Let us know how your service is doing. Or don't -- this might be just the chance you were looking for to ditch work email and get a start on that spring tan. We won't tell a soul.As with RIM's April 2007 outage, the latest downtime has been officially blamed on a flawed software upgrade. According to RIM, the millions left without email can lift their kinked neck and point a crippled digit at an "internal data routing system within the BlackBerry service infrastructure that had been recently upgraded." This upgrade, like the one in 2007, was meant to boost capacity and speed message routing. Right, the same issue which RIM assured us had been resolved last April.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.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.
We can't say that we're shocked to hear this -- you know, considering just how long those Xbox Live holiday blues went on -- but Microsoft is indeed being slapped with a class action lawsuit over the aforementioned outages. Reportedly, a trio of angered Texans are alleging that Microsoft didn't abide by its own contract when network issues disallowed a good chunk of Live users from getting their fix over the past few weeks. According to the complaint, MSFT understood that the time of year would lead to increased activity, yet "failed to provide adequate access and service to Xbox Live and its subscribers." Of course, we're betting the Redmond-based lawyers point out that clause about not guaranteeing any minimum level of service, but who knows, maybe we'll all end up with two shiny new Arcade titles.
The obvious answer as to why Xbox Live has been up and down (but mostly down) over the last couple of weeks is, of course, that the service has undergone a massive distributed denial of service attack. (Feel free to blame the illusory Sony / Nintendo fanboys, if you must.) Naturally, we're already starting to see some of those rumors catch hold, in no small part due to the fact that while GM of Xbox Live Marc Whitten did offer a free game for peoples' trouble in his public memo a few hours ago, he didn't speak to the cause of the outages. We did, however, get some conclusive inside information from a trusted source, and confidently relay to curious Live users that the issues were not at all related to a malicious attack. Yeah, we know, it tones down the drama quite a bit (and actually makes the Xbox team look a little worse than if they were attacked), but the speculation that the service was out due to a two week long internet assault? The stuff of myth.
