Phone Problems

[TallTexan]

Ok anyone else having home phone and cell phone problems or is it just me?? I have verizon on both home and cell.:banghead:

[freedom]

Seems like everything is messed up, started about 1:00 pm today. No Internet at home either... My iPhone works, now

[Racklefras]

I tried to call Verizon about the phone problems and got a recorded message saying "All circuits are busy now" - sometimes the calls I'm receiving or making go through, but not at all now since about 7pm.

[nosefornews]

All afternoon today I've had a very weak verizon cell signal, its been cutting in and out...

[helives]

My cell phone has not had service all afternoon (T-mobile). It is now 10:30 and still no service. Does anyone know what is going on and when service will be up and running again?

[whiteorchid]

Mine came on tonight around 10:30 and I finally got internet. I heard someone in town say there was a line cut in San Antonio which affected some 2 million people. I had no cell phone or landline all day as well. So glad I've now got internet!

[kb5ykj]

AUSTIN (KXAN) - After nearly seven hours 9-1-1, cellular, landline, and internet service for Burnet and Blanco counties is restored.
A contractor working on a roadside drainage area inadvertantly cut the fiber line that connects the services. AT&T, who owns the line, had crews working to fix the line through the afternoon.
According to the Capital Area Council of Governments and local cellular providers::
A fiber cut affected 9-1-1 service to residents of Blanco County and certain parts Burnet County, including Marble Falls. The line was cut after 1 p.m. today, in Waring. The general area affected included Ingram, Kerrville, Fredricksburg, Blanco, Johnson City, Marble Falls and Horseshoe Bay. There is no estimate on the number of people affected.
Earlier Tuesday evening Mike Barger of AT&T released the following statement: "Due to a fiber cut caused by a third party, some area AT&T customers in the Hill Country may be experiencing service disruption. AT&T technicians are currently working to restore service, and we expect that service will be running normally later tonight. We apologize for any inconvenience to our customers."
Residents having trouble reaching 9-1-1 should attempt to dial the local 10-digit number located in the phone book, flag down emergency services personnel, or report to the closest police, fire, or EMS station for assistance.

[lmam88]

Glad to be a member of civilization again...was about ready to go searching for a Pigeon Carrier service!

[Webmaster]

This seems to be happening at least once a year. Is there not any redundancy at all in Verizon's lines? This is one of the primary reasons I moved all of my servers to a data center in Austin.

[KINGCHIP]

I find it interesting that an AT&T cable was cut, and Verizon was affected.

Pass the tin hat.......

[hillcountrywoman]

Only thing is that the same thing was happening in the Dallas area. Verizon internet and AT&T cell phone for sure--not sure what else. Sounds like there was a much bigger issue. I didn't have cell phone service for most of the afternoon and a coworker working at home said the Verizon internet was going in and out all day.

[Webmaster]

Makes you wonder how vulnerable our communications infrastructure really is if a single cut can knock out such a large area...

[JSKR]

I find it interesting that an AT&T cable was cut, and Verizon was affected.

Pass the tin hat.......

Chip, last year when this same thing happened, I was told by my cell provider that all these cables are actually somewhat connected. Basically it seems they are all either on one line, or all bundled together. So pretty much when one gets cut, they all go out. These cables run through here up clear through Dallas is what I was told.

Strange thing is, once you got in Burnet, the phones worked.

What I don't understand is how the cut lines affected the cell phones.. I thought those were air waves of some sort, not through cables.

How did you all have internet yesterday? I didn't even have that...

[tonigking]

I find this all very wierd:secret: My Northland Cable went down around noon, came back around 7:00p. My Verizon landline was good to go all day!:confused:

[JSKR]

My Verizon home phone, Northland internet, and AT&T cell phone were all out from about 1pm until about 7ish.

Verizon would not let any calls in and I couldn't call out. Got the message "all circuits are busy" if someone tried to call me or I tried to call out.

AT&T cell phone just wouldn't do anything when I tried to dial out.

Northland internet just wouldn't work at all.

My friend couldn't get reception on her cell in Marble Falls but once she reached Burnet, she had no problems.

[lmam88]

Is there any other Verizon Internet customers having problems getting to their e-mail accounts? I was finally able to get in lastnight and do some deleting but when I went to respond to one it would not let me reply.
Today my Verizon homepage said closed for upgrades and maintance :mad: and now once again I can't get into my e-mail:confused:.

Was just wondering!

[tarheel]

Makes you wonder how vulnerable our communications infrastructure really is if a single cut can knock out such a large area...

Although our infrastructure may look pretty fragile at such times, there is actually a terrific amount of redundancy over the entire country. I think that Burnet/Llano areas (for example) just aren't big and important enough to have much redundancy. A limited number of fiber optic cables (maybe only one) handle everything coming in (as a general statement) and are shared by many companies in our area.

The previous time there was a cut, I lost my Verizon land line, my Northland cable TV and Internet, and my Verizon Wireless cell phone. All were served by that single fiber optics cable. The reason the cell phone goes out is that the cell towers are served by that fiber cable.

It seems to me that we needn't worry much, except for the occasional accident. If you wanted to cut a fiber cable on purpose, it would not be easy unless you knew what you were doing and had some equipment.

[Nomos]

What I don't understand is how the cut lines affected the cell phones.. I thought those were air waves of some sort, not through cables.


Cell phones work by radio between your cell phone and the tower. From there it's into the fiber/internet system. There may be some tower to tower, and some phone to tower to the receiving cell phone path ... not sure about that ... but for long-haul, it's all over the fiber.