Massive Internet Phone Outtage Western US ?

[Judge]

My brother in Spokane tried to call me many times today, yet my phone just said "incoming message" and would stop ringing. Went to my communications carrier website and saw that service was down.

Went to email my brother, and got a response in minutes. The scary thing? His phones are out as well. He can't even contact his son in town.

Looks like whatever this is may be impacting the whole western part of the country. Not looking good given the circumstances. Still nothing reported by the wire services.

Most reported locations
Los Angeles Seattle Denver Sacramento Reno Spokane Las Vegas Stevens Point Tucson

https://downdetector.com/status/us-cellular/

 

[Tom]

Cyber attack?

 

[Judge]

Seems to be connected to the Verizon outage. Still, that's covering a lot of territory according to this map:

"The company said Wednesday afternoon an outage is affecting voice calls on the West Coast and they're working to resolve the issue."

Verizon outage affecting customers in Washoe County

 

[Mary Terry]

We are so vulnerable to breakdowns of the technology we have come to rely on. I joke about getting two tin cans and some string to run between my sister's house and mine for the inevitable days when our phones go out.

I think about how to make my rural, somewhat isolated home more self-sufficient and livable when the electricity fails. It happens a lot here because I live in a state with violent weather - hurricanes, tornadoes, windstorms, torrential rain events, ice storms, etc. Our house is all-electric so we have a big gasoline generator to supply power, two window air condition units we can install and connect to the generator when it's hot, an induction stove with two burners we can connect to the generator and outdoor charcoal grills and a propane cooker for cooking, a wood burning fireplace with an insert to provide heat in winter, battery operated lights, etc. I'm not trying to replicate all modern conveniences of living in the event the power supply fails, but to provide sufficient conveniences to help me cope without electricity for days or even weeks without losing my mind.

I don't doubt that more outages like you're experiencing are in our future.

 

[Aspychata]

Verizon said it was involving a cable l guess.

 

[Judge]

Phones are still down...at least between Reno and Spokane. Quite a rarity for service to be out this long.

 

[Judge]

Looks like I finally got phone service back.

Guess I should check to see if I can now contact my brother. Got a hold of my cousin...but then she just lives across town.

Nope....guess long distance is still out. Ugh.