Verizon is down

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Rene T

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My Verizon service went down around 7:00 PM Eastern. I was able to connect to the internet using the CG wifi. It looks like it's down in California, Washington State, NC, FL Nevada. 
 
That must be why my cell phone didn't have service in Las Vegas while I was having dinner.  It's Straight Talk powered by Tracfone that alternates between Verizon and T-Mobile depending on the area.
 
I wonder if it was Hackers, Overload, Key tower fail or software update.

I've seen software updates before.  Which turned out to be one mel of a hess as they say. or in the specific one BELL of a MESS.. (Some will figure that out).
 
Rene T said:
That's all it took to create this problem in much of the US?


Apparently. Kinda scary actually; we?ve all become so dependent upon the web and cellular for communication and a mistake by a backhoe operator or purposeful action by someone with nefarious motivations and ?click? we?re in the dark
 
We're in Florida and experienced the same problem. Thought it was just our area. Connected back up with our Karma which I believe is on a Sprint network.
 
This brings up a thought. As a big believer in backup plans, are there pre-paid plans where one could have a backup phone on say Sprint or T-mobile and just leave it active in a drawer without incurring monthly fees?
 
Our phones are Verizon/Tracfone, and our primary hotspot is AT&T. When we're in an area with poor/no Verizon service, we have apps on our phones that let us use VOIP through the hotspot instead of the Verizon cell signal. We do have a spare AT&T phone as well, but we would have to go online and activate it before we could use it for anything more than 911 calls.
 
Sun2Retire said:
Which apps?

A number of newer Android phone (maybe iOS, also) can easily make voice calls over WiFi and don't require any apps.  That was true of my Galaxy S7 and it is also true of my new Google Pixel 2.  Sometimes finding the switches for WiFi calling can be challenging, but the easiest thing to do is go to your Settings menu and then search for WiFi Calling.

The easiest way to tell if you have it properly set up is to put your phone in Airplane Mode and then turn WiFi on.  Next try making a call; your call should connect if you have properly set things up.

When you are setting up WiFi Calling you may be asked to enter a physical address that could be used for 911 purposes if you had an emergency.  If you are spending long period of time in a particular area, it might be worthwhile to update that address.
 
docj said:
A number of newer Android phone (maybe iOS, also) can easily make voice calls over WiFi and don't require any apps.  That was true of my Galaxy S7 and it is also true of my new Google Pixel 2.  Sometimes finding the switches for WiFi calling can be challenging, but the easiest thing to do is go to your Settings menu and then search for WiFi Calling.

The easiest way to tell if you have it properly set up is to put your phone in Airplane Mode and then turn WiFi on.  Next try making a call; your call should connect if you have properly set things up.

When you are setting up WiFi Calling you may be asked to enter a physical address that could be used for 911 purposes if you had an emergency.  If you are spending long period of time in a particular area, it might be worthwhile to update that address.

Joel, this was a great tip thanks. Indeed, the iPhone 6 that I have supports WiFi calling, although it did require a call to Verizon to complete the setup. Tested in airplane mode on AT&T mobley hotspot and worked great.

Unfortunately the iPhone 4 which I keep as a backup does not support WiFi calling so will still need to find a good app for that. Would also be interested in knowing more about pre-paid Sprint/T-mobile options.

Interestingly, Verizon customer service rep commented, "good thing you're not in Florida" referring to the outage.
 
Interesting... Here in San Diego, we're on Sprint, because it's the only network that works at our house. When the Verizon system started acting up, so did our Sprint network. When we tried to send text messages, nothing would send. When we tried to make calls, a recording said, "You are now roaming on the Verizon network."

Kev
 
The whole cell phone system is controlled by computers.  It would not surprise me to hear someday that an outage was caused by hackers.  The industry has to get better at protecting itself.
 
Widespread network outages are fairly common, but not well publicized. There was a major Comcast outage a couple of weeks ago.

At work we maintain redundant voice and data services with alternate carriers for just this reason.
 
It's not unusual for rural areas to have a single path to the Internet.  Port Townsend is within 35 miles of Seattle, but on the wrong side of the Sound.  Up until a couple of years ago it's only data path was along a single overhead cable going north along Highway 101 from Olympia.

Last summer I spent a week in Chama, NM.  It's at the end of a single internet feed that comes north from Santa Fe 160 miles away.  When the link develops problems, which happens fairly frequently, all of the providers including the local landline suffer to the point where local restaurants stop accepting credit cards because their POS card readers couldn't connect.  The RV Park where I was staying also owned the Chevron station out front.  The owner said they routinely accept thousands of dollars worth of transactions during each outage without being able to verify the validity of the cards, otherwise they might as well shut down.

I can tell you more stories than you'd care to hear about the difficulties of maintaining not only internet, but plain old copper wire connectivity and/or even reliable electrical power at multiple transmitter sites in urban/suburban Southern California.

It doesn't take a hacker to bring down our power or communications, the infrastructure has been neglected for so long it's collapsing on it's own.
 
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