AT&T Cell Phone Service is Down Across The United States

CNN - AT&T’s network went down for many of its customers across the United States Thursday morning, leaving customers unable to place calls, text or access the internet.

Although Verizon and T-Mobile customers reported some network outages, too, they appeared far less widespread. T-Mobile and Verizon said their networks were unaffected by AT&T’s service outage and customers reporting outages may have been unable to reach customers who use AT&T.

More than 74,000 AT&T customers reported outages on digital-service tracking site DownDetector. That’s not a comprehensive number: It tracks only self-reported outages. Reports had been rising steadily throughout the morning but leveled off in the 9 am ET hour. 

It was a nightmare of a morning for at least 74,000 people across America. My thoughts and prayers go out to the poor souls who hopped in their cars this morning for a 30 minute commute to work, pulled out of their driveway, opened up Spotify to listen to the newest episode of Barstool Sports' The Bracket podcast, only to find that they don't have lick of cell service. How will they learn which fictional character would would make the worst roommate. Is it the Joker? Brendan Fraser from The Whale? Ted Mosby? Instead they were forced to listen to terrestrial radio. Or god forbid spend a half hour with their own thoughts (a fate worse than death). And they couldn't even angrily post about it online until they arrived at work and connected to WiFi. Pour one out for those unfortunate people. 

At the time of writing this, nobody seems to know the reason for the outage. The "best" explanation I was able to find is that it was caused by a solar flare.

I'm obviously not smart enough to even know if that makes sense. And to be honest with you, had this happened 4 months ago, I wouldn't have thought a thing about it. I'd have told myself, "Ah yes of course, a solar flare. Makes perfect sense to me."

Had I been one of the people affected by the outage, and my phone was stuck on SOS mode, I'd certainly have been furious. I'd have given @ATT a serious talking to in the form of a stern tweet, which I'm sure would have taught them a valuable lesson. But for the most part I would have simply connected my phone to the WiFi, and waited for the cell phone companies to get their shit together.

However, 3 months ago, I saw the movie "Leave The World Behind".

Netflix - Leave the World Behind is here and it’s chilling. Starring Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, and Ethan Hawke, the apocalyptic thriller from Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail tells the story of two families as they fight for survival amid an inexplicable blackout. Only one thing’s for sure: There is no going back to normal. Technology is mysteriously on the fritz, and the deer around the families’ Long Island hideout are acting strange. You can see just how strange in the trailer above, and in a clip from the film below. 

“I had been interested in doing a disaster movie for a while, and I specifically wanted to do one surrounding a cyber attack because I don’t think a lot of people have a concrete idea of what that would look like or how detrimental it would be, not just in America, but globally,” writer and director Esmail told Netflix. “The impact of technology on society is something that I’ve always been fascinated by because I really do think it dramatically changed the way we interact and evolve as people.”

The film is based on the bestselling 2020 novel of the same name by Rumaan Alam, who also serves as executive producer of the film alongside Barack and Michelle Obama, Tonia Davis, Daniel M. Stillman, and Nick Krishnamurthy. Find out more below, and stay safe out there.

If you haven't seen the movie, the gist of it is the US falls victim to a cyber terrorist attack. As part of the cyber attack, cell phone service across the country shut down entirely. Next thing you know, navigation systems are out, giant cargo ships are washing up on shore, airplanes are falling out of the sky, civil war breaks out, and New York City explodes.

Still, if this was any other movie, I wouldn't have thought much about it. Why would I put any credence into what some random Netflix producer thinks would go down in the event of a nationwide cyber attack? But this particular movie, as highlighted in the except above, was executive produced by Barack and Michelle Obama. 

Rolling Stone - An expert in crisis management, Barack sent script notes to writer-director Sam Esmail, creator of Mr. Robot and Homecoming.

“In the original drafts of the script, I definitely pushed things a lot farther than they were in the film, and President Obama, having the experience he does have, was able to ground me a little bit on how things might unfold in reality,” Esmail told Vanity Fair in an interview published Wednesday. “I am writing what I think is fiction, for the most part, I’m trying to keep it as true to life as possible, but I’m exaggerating and dramatizing. And to hear an ex-president say you’re off by a few details… I thought I was off by a lot! The fact that he said that scared the fuck out of me.”

“He had a lot notes about the characters and the empathy we would have for them,” the director added. “I have to say he is a big movie lover, and he wasn’t just giving notes about things that were from his background. He was giving notes as a fan of the book, and he wanted to see a really good film.”

Advertisement

Considering this script was helped along by Barack Obama. Somebody who theoretically would have a better idea than anyone as to how an attack like this would go down. So then I got in my big dumb head about it.

"Holy shit, this is exactly what the former President of the United States said would happen. We're being attacked by enemies. I better get my ass out of the city immediately before this all goes to shit."

Unless that's just what our government wants us to think. Maybe this was their plan the whole time. Perhaps they simply want us to believe that this is the work of the big scary Russians, when in reality there's something different going on entirely. 

Now this is the point of the blog where I'm in over my head. I don't have the slightest clue as to what it could theoretically be. I'm not a conspiracy guy. Realistically, I don't think anything crazy is happening. But I am a simple minded person. When I see a movie that was supposedly made by the Obamas, then part of that script starts coming to life, I'm going to wonder if the world is turning into  that movie. 

Or maybe the cell phone companies are just incompetent. At least for today. In some ways it's surprising this doesn't happen more often. My cell phone service is batting roughly .999 ever since my parents bought me my first Motorola Razr in 8th grade. All things considered, they do a pretty damn good job. Unless I'm completely forgetting something, this is their biggest fuck up I can remember. Honestly this could all be fixed by the time this blog gets posted. I sure hope it is. Because I really need to stop Twitter searching #CyberAttack and do some actual work today.