Americans reporting nationwide cellular outages from AT&T, Cricket Wireless and other providers
Washington, Feb 22: A number of Americans are dealing with cellular outages on AT&T, Cricket Wireless, Verizon, T-Mobile and other service providers, according to data from Downdetector. AT&T, who was the hardest hit, is actively working to restore service to all of its customers.
AT&T had more than 58,000 outages around noon ET, in locations including Houston, Atlanta and Chicago. The outages, which began at approximately 3:30 am ET, peaked at around 73,000 reported incidents. The carrier has more than 240 million subscribers, the country's largest.
"Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. Our network teams took immediate action and so far three-quarters of our network has been restored. We are working as quickly as possible to restore service to remaining customers," AT&T and Cricket said in a statement.
Cricket Wireless, which is owned by AT&T, had more than 9,000 outages, Downdetector said Thursday.
Verizon had more than 2,000 outages and T-Mobile had more than 1,400 outages. Boost Mobile had about 700 outages.
"Verizon's network is operating normally. Some customers experienced issues this morning when calling or texting with customers served by another carrier. We are continuing to monitor the situation," Verizon said.
T-Mobile said that it did not experience an outage.
"Our network is operating normally. Down Detector is likely reflecting challenges our customers were having attempting to connect to users on other networks," T-Mobile said.
Some iPhone users have seen SOS messages displayed in the status bar on their cellphones. The message indicates that the device is having trouble connecting to their cellular provider's network, but it can make emergency calls through other carrier networks, according to Apple Support.
So far, no reason has been given for the outages. But Lee McKnight, an associate professor in the iSchool at Syracuse University, believes the most likely cause of the outage is a cloud misconfiguration, or human error.
"A possible but far less likely outcome is an intentional malicious hack of ATT's network, but the diffuse pattern of outages across the country suggests something more fundamental," McKnight said in an emailed statement.
For those still impacted by the outage, Alexander Wyglinski, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, says that there is a possible workaround.
"A lot of cell phones do Wi-Fi calling. So, as a potential backup, if you are close to a wi-fi access point, you may be able to use that if you are affected by the network outage," he said in an emailed statement.
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Sanjay Raut demands re-election, alleges irregularities in EVMs during Maharashtra polls
Mumbai, Nov 25: Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut on Monday demanded a re-election in Maharashtra using ballot papers, claiming there were irregularities with the electronic voting machines (EVMs).
Talking to reporters, Raut alleged several complaints about EVMs malfunctioning and questioned the integrity of the recently held elections.
The BJP-led Mahayuti won 230 out of 288 seats in the assembly elections, while the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi managed 46 seats, with Shiv Sena (UBT) winning just 20 out of 95 seats it contested.
"We have received nearly 450 complaints regarding EVMs. Despite raising objections repeatedly, no action has been taken on these issues. How can we say these elections were conducted fairly? Hence, I demand that the results be set aside and elections be held again using ballot papers," Raut said.
Citing some instances, he said a candidate in Nashik reportedly received only four votes despite having 65 votes from his family, while in Dombivli, discrepancies were found in EVM tallies, and election officials refused to acknowledge the objections.
The Sena (UBT) leader also questioned the credibility of the landslide victories of some candidates, saying, "What revolutionary work have they done to receive more than 1.5 lakh votes? Even leaders who recently switched parties have become MLAs. This raises suspicions. For the first time, a senior leader like Sharad Pawar has expressed doubts about EVMs, which cannot be ignored."
Asked about the MVA's poor performance in the elections, Raut rejected the idea of blaming a single individual.
"We fought as a united MVA. Even a leader like Sharad Pawar, who commands immense respect in Maharashtra, faced defeat. This shows that we need to analyse the reasons behind the failure. One of the reasons is EVM irregularities and the misuse of the system, unconstitutional practices, and even judicial decisions left unresolved by Justice Chandrachud," he said.
Raut stressed that though internal differences might have existed within the MVA, the failure was collective.
He also accused the Mahayuti of conducting the elections in an unfair manner.
"I cannot call the elections fair given the numerous reports of discrepancies in EVMs, mismatched numbers, and vote irregularities across the state," Raut said.
