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Archive for the 'outage' Tag

T-Mobile says all services restored

November 4th, 2009, 6:21 am by

T-Mobile logoUPDATE: T-Mobile says if you continue to experience difficulty making/receiving calls or accessing data services, please power your phone off then back on. This will update your connection to the network and should restore your access to these services.

UDPATE: 7:19 a.m.: I’m still hearing that service is spotty in south Orange County. Anyone out there feeling that too? Please leave a comment and I’ll check it out.

——————-

It was a rough night for many T-Mobile customers Tuesday as the mobile-service provider acknowledged that there was a widespread outage of its data and voice services affecting at least 5 percent of its 33.5 million customers. That’s approximately 1.7 million customers.

Around 10:30 last night, the company said everything was fixed. In a statement, T-Mobile said that service was fully restored and the company is now investigating what happened. Here’s the statement:

“T-Mobile confirms it has fully restored voice and text/picture messaging services for customers affected by intermittent service disruptions on Tuesday. About five percent of our customers across various geographies were affected for much of Tuesday evening, and by late Tuesday PST their service was restored. Our sole focus has been restoring full services for all customers; we are now investigating the root cause of the incident. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused our customers.”

The five-hour outage affected not just Orange County, but the whole nation. Readers from Arizona, Minnesota, Dallas, Chicago and other cities left comments saying that their T-Mobile service was out, too.

Other news sites reported that the outage happened just as T-Mobile was trying to fix a data outage that some SideKick users have experienced for nearly one month. T-Mobile said it had restored all services by Halloween.

The Wall Street Journal reported that “Microsoft Corp. accidentally lost personal SideKick data stored in its servers. The company and its SideKick unit, Danger, later restored some of the data, but took a lot of public criticism for the slip-up.”

Are you still experiencing an outage or spotty data/voice service? Comment below and I’ll look into it.

Earlier: T-Mobile says phone service not working

Recent Gadgetress stories:

Posted in: Cell phones • • • • | 27 Comments »

Time Warner’s official e-mail on hacker-caused outage

February 27th, 2009, 9:30 am by

Time Warner Cable customers have spent a frustrating week dealing with sporadic Internet outages. While some of us just thought it was just typical Time Warner, the company has actually been attacked by (likely) a group of Zombie computers. 

Reached this morning, Jeff Simmermon, the company’s director of digital communications, says Time Warner is still working on the issues and will offer an update as he learns something new.

Customers also started getting the official e-mail about the attack — the first notification Time Warner has offered to customers, to the dismay of some. I myself, a Time Warner customer, have not received this. But one reader sent in his e-mail, which ironically got caught in his spam filter. Here is Time Warner’s official message: 

During the past week, hackers have launched a series of attacks on Time Warner Cable’s servers. Time Warner Cable is working with law enforcement agencies to resolve these crimes. 

As a result of these attacks, you may have experienced a temporary “outage” when attempting to surf the Web, including an intermittent “page cannot be displayed” error message. The outages did not result in services being 100% unavailable; and were limited to sporadic timeouts which appeared to be random events. Some users may have experienced a total disconnect. These types of attacks are not uncommon, especially for a network as large as ours. We suspect that the attackers are using “zombie computers,” or hijacking unsuspecting subscribers’ machines to perpetrate the attack without its owner’s knowledge. 

All of us at Time Warner Cable take these attacks extremely seriously. As previously mentioned, we are working with the appropriate law enforcement agencies that specialize in investigating these types of crimes. We will pursue prosecution of all perpetrators to the fullest extent of the law. We apologize for the inconvenience that these attacks may have caused and encourage you to report any suspicious activity. Instructions for reporting security abuse are located at http://help.rr.com.

Sincerely,

Time Warner Cable Customer Service

UPDATE: As mentioned previously and after a reader reminder, customers can switch to OpenDNS.com so their Internet DNS service is independent of Time Warner’s system currently under attack.

Recent Time Warner Cable news: Check out the Gadgetress Guide to local TV services. Latest TV services headlines:

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • | 8 Comments »

Hackers attack Time Warner Cable’s Internet service

February 26th, 2009, 9:15 am by

I’ve been receiving complaints from readers who are Time Warner customers and, apparently, this is serious stuff.

Jeff Simmermon, Time Warner’s director of digital communications, said its DNS servers (the system that matches easy-to-remember web addresses to the corresponding numbers — such as ocregister.com instead of numbers) have targeted by ”denial of service” attacks for seven days. Without these translations functioning, web browsers are unable to locate their destinations.

In a message, Simmermon said “hackers have launched a series of DOS attacks on Time Warner Cable’s DNS servers, affecting customer experience in our Southern California and National regions.”

It ain’t pretty, he said. Customers are being affected and getting intermittent error notices like “page cannot be displayed” when looking up a site online.

Reached this morning, Simmermon said that Time Warner isn’t going to ignore this.

“This is a crime that is being perpetrated on us. It’s a big deal and it’s affecting a lot of our customers. We will prosecute,” he said.

Customers should be getting an e-mail on this later today, he said.

Here is the rest of his earlier message:

These attacks are not uncommon, especially for a network as large as ours. However, this particular series of attacks has been larger and more difficult to contain than similar attacks in the past. We suspect that the attackers are using “zombie computers,” or hijacking unsuspecting subscribers’ machines to perpetuate the attack without its owner’s knowledge.

As of 6PM EST on Feb. 24th, we have amplified and expanded early detection and response to this sort of problem.

Customers who want to prevent their computers from being used in this sort of attack should make sure that their anti-virus and firewall software are up to date.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Please know that we are currently working with the help of law enforcement to bring these attackers to justice.

All TWC customers can avoid the issue by using an alternative DNS technology, such as OpenDNS. Switching is pretty self-explanatory.

Also, to get it on the record, I recommend calling customer service and complaining: (888)-TWCABLE. You can also communicate with Simmermon directly by following him on Twitter at twitter.com/jeffTWC

Stay tuned…

Recent Time Warner Cable news: Check out the Gadgetress Guide to local TV services. Latest TV services headlines:

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • | 32 Comments »

The weekly Time Warner Cable status report

December 22nd, 2008, 5:25 pm by

I continue to get reports from local Time Warner Cable readers who experienced an outage more than a week after the the cable company said everything was fixed. Since complaints are still frequent, I’ve added a weekly status report until I no longer hear from readers about such issues.

Darryl Ryan, Time Warner’s local media spokesman, responded today with this:

There has been no outage and no reports of any outages.

For the few readers who are emailing you about service issues, please encourage them to call us and have a technician come out and fix the problem. 

After the massive outage two weeks ago, I advised users to switch to an alternative Domain Name System service like OpenDNS. DNS is the technology that lets us type in an easy-to-remember web site address,  (like ocregister.com) as opposed to numbers (69.25.233.228). The DNS resolves numbers into letters.  Without these translations functioning, web browsers are unable to locate their destinations. Time Warner’s outage was caused by the DNS not resolving correctly. 

I, myself, am a Time Warner Cable customer (Internet and TV). I switched to OpenDNS, but in order to feel the pain of the rest of you, I switched back. Working from home this morning, my Internet service stopped working three times due to the DNS issue. It was back within seconds, but that Internet hiccup made me lose connection and logged me off my office network. A big inconvenience. However, I’m glad I wasn’t in the middle of an online shopping transaction. My husband made us go back to OpenDNS.

I called customer service to lodge a complaint. The recorded message didn’t mention the Internet outage but did say Time Warner is aware that its telephone service was experiencing “intermittent dial tone.”

I encourage customers to call in and complain at  1-888-TWCABLE (888-892-2253). And e-mail me or comment below so we can keep track. Hopefully, this will be the last report on the TWC outage.

Don’t want to miss any posts on Time Warner Cable? Subscribe to my TWC newsletter, via Feedburner. Visit this page for more e-mail subscriptions.

Previously:

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • | 7 Comments »

Is Time Warner Cable’s Internet outage really fixed?

December 16th, 2008, 4:28 pm by

**Update, 12/22/08**: I’m still getting reports from readers of Time Warner Cable Internet outages, so I’ve decided to offer a weekly update until the issue is fixed. Read the latest at “The weekly Time Warner Cable status report.”

Time Warner Cable

Last week’s massive Internet outage among local Time Warner Cable customers was resolved as of last Thursday, Dec. 11. At least that’s what Darryl Ryan, the company’s area media guy told me. 

Some readers disagreed.  I heard from many folks about the outage after Ryan told me it was over. Several let me know that their Internet still wasn’t working over the weekend. And this morning, one commenter said his Internet was still down and he had to resort to dial-up (ack!).

And the strange thing is that Time Warner’s Southern California web page no longer has a link to “network status,” which other Time Warner outlets still do (like Dallas). I found out about this after I called technical support to complain about my own Internet service last week. The service rep tried to direct me to that link, not knowing it was no longer there.

So, for all the frustrated readers, I called Time Warner again.

Everything is still fixed, Ryan responded. While there may be residual complaints stemming from the mass outage last week, any other outages are unrelated.

Occasionally, there are outages in service, he said. And if customers spot an issue, they need to call: 1-888-TWCABLE (888-892-2253). You enter your home phone number and a customized message will tell you whether cable in your area is having technical difficulties.

Ryan said that the ‘network status’ link on its customer help page was removed last month in favor of the phone-based support system. The status page was hard to understand with dates all over the place. But too bad Time Warner can’t figure out how to fix that so we can all check network status online without picking up the phone.

For everyone whose service was down, Ryan said Time Warner will credit your account for the lost days, time. Again, it’s pro-active — you have to call to get the credit. 

In the future, if service is ever down, I encourage customers to call Time Warner and get it on the record. Otherwise, they may think the issue only affects a handful of people. And while you’re at it, send me an e-mail  so I, too, can keep track of widespread outages. And please be specific with the issue. Thanks!

Related Time Warner stories:

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • | 30 Comments »

Time Warner Cable Internet outage fixed

December 11th, 2008, 10:02 am by

**Update, 12/22/08**: I’m still getting reports from readers of Time Warner Cable Internet outages, so I’ve decided to offer a weekly update until the issue is fixed. Read the latest at “The weekly Time Warner Cable status report.”

**UPDATE, Dec. 16, 2008** Because I’ve continued to receive complaints that Time Warner’s Internet is not fixed, I checked in with the company again at “Is Time Warner Cable’s Internet really fixed?“**

Time Warner Cable

If you were one of the thousands who experienced an Internet outage late Monday night, and then Tuesday morning and even possibly today, that issue has been fixed, according to Time Warner Cable spokesman Darryl Ryan.

The outage affected Internet users, and not cable and phone users as some media reported. And the number of affected subscribers was overblown, Ryan said. 

“It was no where close to that 1 million number. If I were to estimate it, it was more in the low thousands,” he said.

However, he agreed that if Time Warner’s million-plus Internet users in the area were online at the time, they could have been affected by the outage.

The outage, which started Monday around 10 p.m., lasted a few hours for many. Those who noticed it were viewing Web sites. Another outage started around 3 a.m. Tuesday. But those customers who experienced the worst of it did something you’d think might fix the problem: they rebooted their cable modem. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • | 29 Comments »

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