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See the original image at therawfeed.com —

AT&T Has No Idea What Caused 9-Hour Outage

therawfeed.com — AT&T's EDGE and UMTS data networks went down yesterday at 2:30pm Pacific Time for BlackBerry, iPhone and other cell phone data customers in 18 states. Even now the company's technicians have NO IDEA WHAT CAUSED IT.

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  • DarkDx, on 02/02/2008, -16/+17Priceless.
    • lex0nyc, on 02/02/2008, -0/+9I don't know about that. It probably cost quite a few people a lot of money to lose connections for 18 hours. I'm sure you won't see AT&T offering to reimburse them though.
      • AFHCO, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1Like, to me. I was pissed about the loads of money I pay to them every month, and then the wireless Internet randomly "stops working"? No, I'm gonna get some type of compensation.
      • adooga, on 02/02/2008, -1/+3Priceless doesn't mean free, it means very difficult to put a price on. So I think it's appropriately used here.
        • Radian, on 02/03/2008, -0/+2Not to rain on your parade, but actually "priceless" means "without a price". It might be very easy to price the item, it just hasn't been done yet.
    • expatcatalyst, on 02/02/2008, -4/+1Hopefully it was caused by something in connection with this: http://digg.com/security/Big_Brother_is_Listening_
    • secleinteer, on 02/02/2008, -9/+2Anyone that's enough of a tool to own an iPhone can go suck a dick.
    • troye, on 02/02/2008, -2/+2For everything else, there is master card.
    • jerrycan, on 02/03/2008, -0/+0It was me. I searched the word "google" on google.com.
    • Stonekeeper, on 02/03/2008, -0/+1It was terrorists. Guilanni told me.
  • whittmadden, on 02/02/2008, -4/+15I believe I have had similiar experiences with them.
  • streak, on 02/02/2008, -33/+4I live in the Midwest and I DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE IT. Network worked fine the whole day, voice and data.
    Buried Incompetent.
    • Digger1123, on 02/02/2008, -0/+9Mine was down from about 8:30AM-2PM MST on the 31st
    • expatcatalyst, on 02/02/2008, -1/+1I have Verizon and didn't notice a thing either......;-)
  • h4ckler, on 02/02/2008, -10/+107I work @ at&t and they know what caused it. Where is this person getting their information?
    • Digger1123, on 02/02/2008, -2/+39what was it?
      • holzp, on 02/02/2008, -3/+66They had to install new government packet snoops. Verizon was able to do it with minimum downtime.
        • CPoe, on 02/02/2008, -1/+19"Government packet snoops"
          Sounds scary.
      • SteveIsTheDude, on 02/02/2008, -1/+7Your making that ***** up!
        • flogistan, on 02/02/2008, -1/+3I would tend to agree. Not that they they don't spot snoop every form of data they transmit including landline phone conversations, cellular, and internet, but they don't let people in on it that don't have administrative duties around the project even if they work for the companies. If this guy is one of those people, he wouldn't risk his job posting that bull on digg. There have been whistle blower who have corroborated what he's saying, but I don't think he knows anything about this particular case.
    • Darph.Bobo, on 02/02/2008, -3/+44The real question is why are you holding back information?
      • SSUK, on 02/02/2008, -0/+7Ironically enough, it's communication companies who don't like to communicate.
    • Albo23, on 02/02/2008, -2/+30The guy is a customer service rep, they're supposed to say that.
    • jj9000, on 02/02/2008, -1/+22I buried this story as inaccurate. Just because no statement has been released DOES NOT MEAN THEY HAVE NO IDEA. There's no quotes from anyone in this story. Jesus.
      • roberto_deneero, on 02/02/2008, -1/+3Exactly. When you don't want to state the truth, you just deny knowing anything. This is PR 101 people, not rocket science. Buried for dumbness.
    • da5id, on 02/02/2008, -2/+2I believe you. :=
    • HHP2K, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1Evil minion!
    • FDDIcent, on 02/02/2008, -1/+7Cause he probably can't legally say anything about the company he works for, I'm in a similar situation with the company I work for.
    • MitchCumstein, on 02/02/2008, -0/+4Sorry it was my fault. I wrote an iPhone application that made a network connection in an infinite loop. Steve Jobs was right!
      • manitoba98xp, on 02/03/2008, -0/+1In an infinite loop or to 1 Infinite Loop (Cupertino, CA)?
  • ZeeshanHasan, on 02/02/2008, -9/+1hackers ......... probably
    • lex0nyc, on 02/02/2008, -0/+4We built the system. Why would we want to take it down?
      • andycr512, on 02/02/2008, -0/+4Yes, he meant crackers, if you prefer.
        • davidrools, on 02/02/2008, -0/+9yeah, go ahead and blame it on white people. ;)
          • bugsy187, on 02/02/2008, -0/+4What, is this the year 1900? It's "honkey," thank you very much.
          • Kennerk, on 02/03/2008, -0/+2well us white people is edumacated, and we can do blame ourselves in this day and age cant we?! i mean if we cant crack a white joke, what good are we !?!!
      • SteveIsTheDude, on 02/02/2008, -0/+6We built this system... on rock and roll!
  • dannydyer1000, on 02/02/2008, -4/+51I don't like all of this telecommunications/internet failure. Something doesn't quite seem right about it, seriously.
    • Ihatenicks, on 02/02/2008, -11/+6AT&T goes down, three cables cut and no one is reporting what happened?
      Surely it's obvious to a blind man that this isn't all just coincidence?.. It's an orchestrated attack on our privacy by an American government hellbent on spying on the world.
      ***** America! (unfortuately that statement has to blanket it's people also because they aren't doing anything to stop their politicians from perpetrating obviously illegal actions to the detriment of the world.. first an illegal and made up war, now spying on the world...)
      Do somehitng you stupid yanks and you might regain alittle bit of world repect, because at the moment you are just considered ignorantly irresponsible and a (dangerous) joke by the rest of the world.
      • lfernandez91, on 02/02/2008, -2/+6Why just why, does it always have to be the US? Don't you have some new conspiracy theory with another country? Scientology or something?
        • Ihatenicks, on 02/02/2008, -7/+3Conspiracy has NOTHING to do with it.. IT'S ACTUALLY ALL HAPPENING.
          LOOK AROUND YOU.
        • KataLieb, on 02/02/2008, -7/+2um, scientology IS American?
          *snickers*
        • SSUK, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1Life is boring, some people have it in their heads that it somehow isn't.
          • JustFender, on 02/02/2008, -1/+2no, life is everything, life is boring and exciting and mundane and depressing and joyful and happy and ecstatic and ectasy and pain and suffering and peace and war, everything, its just your perspective thats boring, besides sometimes its fun to wind people on the internet and watch them go "flabber gaster blaster master, i must reply to this comment before i go make another coffee!"
      • PaulPinfield, on 02/02/2008, -3/+2Dugg.
    • da5id, on 02/02/2008, -4/+3Al-Qaeda ?
    • troye, on 02/02/2008, -3/+5Bush must be planning his next terrorist attack.

      This is all just a precursor to it. He just has to set up up and BAM! ... another 911.
  • maxpower2911, on 02/02/2008, -6/+2AT&T will probably raise their prices to fund a blue ribbon committee to find out what caused the outage. Of course, this will have nothing to do with their monopoly.
  • smoothtape, on 02/02/2008, -3/+83maybe it was a boat anchor
    • getrealnow, on 02/02/2008, -3/+4Lurk more guys to get the joke, why bury him? I lol'd :)
    • 22magnum, on 02/02/2008, -2/+8in Borat voice "high five"
    • shinkiwink, on 02/02/2008, -0/+2All i can say is "NICE"
  • rtmag, on 02/02/2008, -4/+13Sounds just like them... Remember "Fewest dropped calls!"? Only on America's patchiest network.
  • scootscr15, on 02/02/2008, -3/+17Manbearpig
  • cptshamrock, on 02/02/2008, -1/+19Blogspam
    http://www.betanews.com/article/Ninehour_network_o ...
  • manicallday, on 02/02/2008, -4/+9I think that it was UFOs using the AT&T satellites to coordinate their impending attack.
  • NorthStateGonzo, on 02/02/2008, -1/+5Can Someone Say " BlackHat and Pressure Test "??
    • KataLieb, on 02/02/2008, -0/+2I can!
      hap black, captains skip, arr! boys, test em pumps, storm ahoy!
  • hammer310, on 02/02/2008, -1/+9It was clearly an EMP which caused the outage.
    • SteveIsTheDude, on 02/02/2008, -0/+4I think it was a T-1000! (Read with Austrian accent)
      • HolyChimp, on 02/02/2008, -0/+3I read that as 'Read with Australian accent' and instantly thought 'Crikey!'
      • jeet404, on 02/03/2008, -0/+1Am I the only one who doesn't know what a Austrian accent is?
  • salomejones, on 02/02/2008, -0/+11Not saying what it was and not KNOWING what it was are two completely different things, and thanks a lot for the blog spam. Buried for inaccuracy, spam, and lameness.
  • DaveInCA, on 02/02/2008, -4/+3Just another of many indicators that we are too dependent on technology.
    • vertinox, on 02/02/2008, -0/+4I'm too dependent on my refrigerator to keep my food from spoiling and I'm too dependent on my light switch from having to sit around a fire at night. Without technology man is just another monkey whose not really good at running away from large predators.
  • lefooey, on 02/02/2008, -1/+16Talk about your sensationalist headlines! The actual news post reads "AT&T has not reported what the cause of the outage was, or even how many customers were affected." Just because they haven't told every blogger what happens doesn't mean they don't know. Buried as inaccurate.
    • bbqribs, on 02/03/2008, -0/+0And this is the problem with blogs and why they aren't serious journalism. Too many asshats clawing for a front page post that gets them some ad revenue.
  • JoaoPe, on 02/02/2008, -5/+1I swear I didn't do it !
  • linksus, on 02/02/2008, -0/+4I work for an isp myself. If something this big effects so many people. you need to investigate the cause and get a statement correct before publishing it otherwise people just take it out of context and it all blows waaaay outta proportion.
    • Destined, on 02/02/2008, -1/+2Are you referring to the blogger making an incorrect statement, or the linked article that says that they haven't yet stated what caused it?

      The fact that this is being dugg is completely representative, imo, of how ignorant people are in not actually looking into the facts or even RTFA. (Much like students I deal with where they don't read the manual and tell me that I don't tell them how to do the lab. *boggles*)
  • mattshoppes, on 02/02/2008, -0/+2Maybe it was only parts of PA? I'm in PA, and have had no issues with EDGE yesterday or today.
    • 0011002, on 02/02/2008, -0/+1Yeah a coworker who has an IPhone here in PA saw no problems either.
  • derekknight, on 02/02/2008, -2/+6it's common knowledge that the cause of the problem was the power strip that plugs in all forty eight 2400 baud modems.
  • abszint, on 02/02/2008, -3/+3it was teh replicators invading your iphones
  • Shuk, on 02/02/2008, -2/+2Jack Bauer. You don't need to know the rest.
  • 33PercentGod, on 02/02/2008, -1/+17SKYNET is becoming self aware.
  • SebHughes, on 02/02/2008, -1/+2I blame that damm ship trying to anchor.
  • dkern, on 02/02/2008, -6/+1I used to sleep with a guy who worked for AT&T- I what caused it!
  • Oronar, on 02/02/2008, -0/+6I know what happened. An overloaded truck had an accident en route and clogged up a major tube.
    • dawnraid101, on 02/03/2008, -0/+3or you just took a dump and clogged up a major tube.
  • Topslakr, on 02/02/2008, -0/+11The article doesn't say AT&T doesn't know.. it says they haven't announced it....

    Buried, Inaccurate. Title should say 'AT&T hasn't not reported what caused the outage'
    • Skootles, on 02/02/2008, -3/+1"Beginning at around 5:30 EST on Thursday, AT&T's EDGE and UMTS data networks went down for reasons even now unknown to company technicians."

      Moron. Besides, they do know.

    • Alex.w, on 02/03/2008, -0/+1You think that would get to the front page though?
  • ronaldmonster, on 02/02/2008, -1/+1And I'm not surprised on bit.
  • BradMW, on 02/02/2008, -1/+3This is the kind of story that makes it to Digg these days. A CSR doesn't have a response he can give to a customer, big frickin surprise. Everyone knows dealing with telecom CS is the worst experience someone can go through. Just yesterday I was on hold for 2 hours being bounced around before everyone left at 6PM and closed their service; I was hung up on more than once and was understandly furious, but that and this is just business as usual, why is it news?
  • jolieve, on 02/02/2008, -0/+5In addition to misrepresenting the content of this article, it's also inaccurately filed. This outage did not solely effect iPhone users, so I don't see what this article has to do with Apple. Apple did not cause the outage, nor was it Apple's network that went down.

    Buried.
  • CrazedLeper, on 02/02/2008, -4/+2Damned lie. They caused it while installing some NSA spy equipment. Think they're going to admit to that?
  • LucasKane, on 02/02/2008, -2/+3Anon
  • zanvann, on 02/02/2008, -4/+3I'm not one to feed conspiracies, but all this is too dodgy for nothing to be behind it. The cut cables, unexplained outage times?

    Governments crave absolute power over people, and only freedom stands in the way of that. Can you imagine the world today without internet? True liberty has it's last stand in the anonymity of the internet. If they take that away from us, we're boned.

    This might be the last chance I get to say this, so I'll say it now:
    I love you google.
    • 1310nm, on 02/02/2008, -1/+1You aren't anonymous on the Internet. When it really comes down to it, even if you made a blog post behind a TOR node on an open 802.11g connection at an Arby's across the continent from your house with a spoofed MAC about murdering someone, and they turn up dead, someone WILL find you. I understand how you feel, but the gov't nor ISPs really care enough about your personal life to track you down for metrosexual MySpace blogging about your Friday night on the town.
  • dimebonics, on 02/02/2008, -3/+1Sounds like they are implementing Internet 2.0 under the guise of power outages! Yay for country border firewalls!
  • Stea1th, on 02/02/2008, -2/+2My phone has been fine and haven't had any customer complaints... So burried.
  • EarlOfLade, on 02/02/2008, -0/+2It's Xenu and Tom Cruise, I swear!
  • nastronomical, on 02/02/2008, -1/+4Rawfeed=Blog=Garbage
  • 28dayslater, on 02/02/2008, -1/+3Did anyone check to see if Doctor Doom and Magneto are still locked up? This has their handiwork written all over it.
  • pharmakon, on 02/02/2008, -1/+3*****. they re-prioritized all traffic to allow steve jobs to download the entire peter north collection in HD to his 32gb iphone over edge.
    • Sabin, on 02/03/2008, -0/+11600 films in HD would need a lot more space than that.
  • skyshock1, on 02/02/2008, -0/+3Skip blogspam and go straight to printable version of the article - http://www.betanews.com/article/print/Ninehour_net ...
  • maklershed, on 02/02/2008, -0/+2I'm having trouble controlling THE VOLUME OF MY VOICE!
  • 1310nm, on 02/02/2008, -0/+3I'll give them some credit, there are jobs on the line with an outage like this, and if it's human error, I'm sure it's very difficult to pin it down to someone. There's usually plenty of blame game and lots of troubleshooting and conversation about the equipment and protocols involved before you come up with a real answer, if you ever do.
    • reddikilowatt, on 02/03/2008, -0/+1No one gets fired over network outages, unless they intentionally destroyed something.
  • AsusMobo, on 02/02/2008, -0/+6NSA was installing new gear.
  • MacintoshSauce, on 02/02/2008, -1/+3"It's Xenu and Tom Cruise, I swear!"

    ***** Xenu and Tom Cruise!
  • mehan, on 02/02/2008, -4/+5that means less iFags on the internetz, is that really such a bad thing?
  • deadcrickets, on 02/02/2008, -0/+2AT&T was later quoted as saying, "We are not sure what happened though there was a great company party at one of our communications center and apparently some urine pools were found around the servers after. We are not sure if it's related."
  • BLAM8, on 02/02/2008, -0/+5Actually, a friend who is a technician told me what caused it.
    Six GGSNs "rolled over". (GGSNs are wireless to internet/network gateways, these got upgraded/relocated/phased out and the network didn't come back as planned.)
    http://gizmodo.com/351154/why-and-who-in-the-att-n ...
  • solarsavior, on 02/02/2008, -0/+2We don't know what caused the problem, but we think it originated in one of the rooms used for wiretapping.
  • pigfister, on 02/02/2008, -1/+1just diverting the remaining lines to the CIA
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