Fifteen hours without internet. Fine, I'll just sleep it off. Wake up to it back on and to find the following posted: http://lostcoastoutpost.com/2011/aug/6/humboldt-county-gets-its-internet-back/
"Internet and cell phone were down overnight in Arcata. Land lines seem not to have been affected, but some people reported that they couldn’t dial long distance."
When my internet connection was lost a mere 7 hrs after coming back up for the first time, AT&T responded by questioning my knowledge on the subject (how do you even KNOW there was an issue with the fiber optic cable?) and denying that any outage had occurred within the state in the past 24 hrs even though this had been posted the previous day just after 3pm: http://lostcoastoutpost.com/2011/aug/5/widespread-suddenlink-outage-all-around-humboldt/
"John Britton, a spokesperson for AT&T, just confirmed to the Lost Coast Outpost that the telecommunications outages throughout Humboldt County this afternoon were caused by damage to their fiber-optic trunk line just south of Willits. Britton said that his information, coming from AT&T crews on the ground, is that a small grass fire damaged a power pole supporting the fiber-optic cable, the county’s sole trunk line to the outside world, just outside that town today. The cable appears to have been damaged but not completely
severed, Britton said."
After spending a solid TWO hours on the phone with tech support to regain an internet connection, I was ready to pull my hair out at the roots when it went down yet again. Saturday consisted of 3 solid hours online with tech support while they insisted there was no outage and there MUST be a problem with (pick one) my router, modem, computer, cable or browser. Really AT&T?--my browser?!?! Excuse me if I can't even find the comedy in your asking me to open Internet Explorer on my Macintosh. Especially after we've already tried 2 Mac compatible browsers. /sigh
This was posted on 5am on the day that will hereby be referred to as Tech Support Saturday: http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_18630483
"An AT&T fiber outage, caused by a small fire, resulted in Suddenlink and Verizon customers across Humboldt County experiencing phone and internet service problems Friday. Customers were unable to make phone calls, receiving the following message, "We're sorry, all circuits are busy now."
AT&T Director of Corporate Communications John Britton said that a small fire north of Ukiah burned a section of the cable causing the fiber outage at approximately 3 pm Friday."
So it seems AT&T was putting out press releases while simultaneously conflicting them with their tech support (*once you were able to get through during normal business hours). I don't necessarily tech support as they may not have had the knowledge if it wasn't given to them. Their employer, however, aggravates me to no end. More than a loss of entertainment, all atm transactions were down (ie: food and/or bill payments and no way to make other arrangements as there was only very sporadic and unreliable phone service) as well as the 911 call and routing system.
At a time when solar storms are at a peak, at least some top executive could have come up with this excuse to route to their techies: http://news.yahoo.com/power-companies-prepare-solar-storms-set-hit-earth-144759933.html
"Major disruptions from solar activity are rare but have had serious impacts in the past.
In 1989, a solar storm took down the power grid in Quebec, Canada, leaving about six million people without power for several hours."
And that's the name of the game when you only have one line running in to a rural but very used-to-being-connected community.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
A few other opinions can be found at the following sites:
reason-no-7246-att-sucks-threatening-legal-action-for-emailing-the-ceo
www.who-sucks.com/tech/8-reasons-why-att-sucks-beyond-all-belief
"Internet and cell phone were down overnight in Arcata. Land lines seem not to have been affected, but some people reported that they couldn’t dial long distance."
When my internet connection was lost a mere 7 hrs after coming back up for the first time, AT&T responded by questioning my knowledge on the subject (how do you even KNOW there was an issue with the fiber optic cable?) and denying that any outage had occurred within the state in the past 24 hrs even though this had been posted the previous day just after 3pm: http://lostcoastoutpost.com/2011/aug/5/widespread-suddenlink-outage-all-around-humboldt/
"John Britton, a spokesperson for AT&T, just confirmed to the Lost Coast Outpost that the telecommunications outages throughout Humboldt County this afternoon were caused by damage to their fiber-optic trunk line just south of Willits. Britton said that his information, coming from AT&T crews on the ground, is that a small grass fire damaged a power pole supporting the fiber-optic cable, the county’s sole trunk line to the outside world, just outside that town today. The cable appears to have been damaged but not completely
severed, Britton said."
After spending a solid TWO hours on the phone with tech support to regain an internet connection, I was ready to pull my hair out at the roots when it went down yet again. Saturday consisted of 3 solid hours online with tech support while they insisted there was no outage and there MUST be a problem with (pick one) my router, modem, computer, cable or browser. Really AT&T?--my browser?!?! Excuse me if I can't even find the comedy in your asking me to open Internet Explorer on my Macintosh. Especially after we've already tried 2 Mac compatible browsers. /sigh
This was posted on 5am on the day that will hereby be referred to as Tech Support Saturday: http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_18630483
"An AT&T fiber outage, caused by a small fire, resulted in Suddenlink and Verizon customers across Humboldt County experiencing phone and internet service problems Friday. Customers were unable to make phone calls, receiving the following message, "We're sorry, all circuits are busy now."
AT&T Director of Corporate Communications John Britton said that a small fire north of Ukiah burned a section of the cable causing the fiber outage at approximately 3 pm Friday."
So it seems AT&T was putting out press releases while simultaneously conflicting them with their tech support (*once you were able to get through during normal business hours). I don't necessarily tech support as they may not have had the knowledge if it wasn't given to them. Their employer, however, aggravates me to no end. More than a loss of entertainment, all atm transactions were down (ie: food and/or bill payments and no way to make other arrangements as there was only very sporadic and unreliable phone service) as well as the 911 call and routing system.
At a time when solar storms are at a peak, at least some top executive could have come up with this excuse to route to their techies: http://news.yahoo.com/power-companies-prepare-solar-storms-set-hit-earth-144759933.html
"Major disruptions from solar activity are rare but have had serious impacts in the past.
In 1989, a solar storm took down the power grid in Quebec, Canada, leaving about six million people without power for several hours."
And that's the name of the game when you only have one line running in to a rural but very used-to-being-connected community.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
A few other opinions can be found at the following sites:
reason-no-7246-att-sucks-threatening-legal-action-for-emailing-the-ceo
www.who-sucks.com/tech/8-reasons-why-att-sucks-beyond-all-belief
