Living up to its 'un-carrier' slogan, T-Mobile US stops carrying incoming calls, data in nationwide outage

T-Mobile US is suffering a nationwide technical breakdown, preventing customers from receiving calls and knackering data connections. We understand not only are incoming calls being black-holed, but some subscribers saw their connectivity downgraded from LTE to HSPDA when trying to make calls, and encountered busy circuit …

[RM Myers]

Still have problems sending text messages

Just got a "text not sent" message trying to confirm a doctor's appointment. This was around 1:35 am GMT.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

At least the status worked

611 (service & repair number) said there was an outage and customer service reps were unavailable. Somebody gets credit for making that more robust than the average SaaS status page.

[ecofeco]

Possible reason

T- moblie is merging its network with Sprint's.

[Wade Burchette]

Re: Possible reason

Yep. Sounds like T-Mobile will fit right in with Sprint.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Possible reason

Probably not the case: the network went down in large parts of Germany today as well.

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Terrible

On the plus side, my work calls all went to voicemail. On the down side, my Pornhub connection went to shit, and yes, that's a euphemism. On balance, we'll call it a draw.

[dak]

What's an "un-carrier"?

Please see title

[diodesign]

Re: What's an "un-carrier"?

See the linked-to article in the story. Un-carrier is T-Mobile US's slogan to distance itself from the other main carriers. As in, it won't treat you badly like the big players, and will offer you features the others can't, allegedly.

In America, T-Mobile US is third place to Verizon Wireless and AT&T, pre-Sprint merger.

C.

[dak]

Re: What's an "un-carrier"?

I saw that article, it didn't explain anything, just had a boss complaining about it.

So it's just marketingspeak, then, not anything significant?

[James O'Shea]

Re: What's an "un-carrier"?

It's not just marketingspeak, it's _unoriginal_ marketingspeak. They stole it from 7-Up, 'the UnCola'. https://flashbak.com/when-7up-was-cool-the-uncola-ad-campaign-1969-1973-27578/

[Charlie Clark]

Re: What's an "un-carrier"?

imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

I think you'll find that 7Up probably wasn't the first to try this approach either…

[J. Cook]

Re: What's an "un-carrier"?

Indeed; it's double-plus-ungood.

(finally get a change to use this icon correctly...)

[My other car WAS an IAV Stryker]

Re: What's an "un-carrier"?

"...won't treat you badly like the big players..."

Bollocks. We were trying to upgrade phones back in the day* and were treated like utter crap. Their offerings were horrible, the extra upgrade fees extortionist, and they had no sense of maintaining any kind of customer loyalty.

We switched to Verizon, which was marginally better on both performance and service.

* I'd like to say it was autumn 2011. I know we went through two 2-year cycles with Big Red V. We had T-Mobile together since February 2006 -- the missus even longer than that (we were still dating at the time).

Later (autumn 2015) we switched to AT&T -- they gave us a load of bill credits for transferring numbers and I liked their new billing scheme -- and both metrics did not decrease (didn't really increase either).

YMMV.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: What's an "un-carrier"?

They came up with it after that, and probably after the failed merger with AT&T when they started going after marketshare by offering "unlimited" deals, in comparison with the eye-wateringly expensive deals of the other networks. This was successful enough to make Sprint want to merge.

[Hero Protagonist]

Re: What's an "un-carrier"?

In this case it means they will “uncarry” your calls and data connections.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What's an "un-carrier"?

IIRC They're a cell phone carrier that doesn't own the towers. They are essentially reselling AT&T service. My info could be highly outdated or inaccurate...

[Joe Drunk]

"They were making some changes to their network configurations today. Unfortunately, it went badly. The result has been for around the last six hours a series of cascading failures for their users, impacting both their voice and data networks."

Ouch. That last paragraph just brought some bad flashbacks to my days of working in a data center when changes would go horribly wrong and the subsequent life-draining marathon of hours required to restore services. We made all changes on the weekends however to minimize business impact so I would like to know why they would do it on a Monday morning.

[tempemeaty]

There is an unreported massive globally based DDOS attack against US networks going on right now

[WolfFan]

There’s _something_ hitting T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast’s networks, all at the same time.

[NomadUK]

Strange Curves

Oddly, looking at the Downdetector home page, the problem report curves for Metro, T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, US Cellular, Consumer Cellular, Century Link, Mint, and Cricket all look strangely similar. Even Google and YouTube have the same general shape: all have a sudden peak at around 15.00 - 16.00 on 15 June, gradually tapering off.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Strange Curves

ya'but Cox and Facebook too? Facebook doesn't quite match that cohort. Would be nice to have an explanation...

[eldel]

Re: Strange Curves

Something, somewhere is certainly borked. My (Comcast) connection is OK - but only if I use the VPN. Going 'native' the performance is dire. Different browsers, different machines - same thing.

[cd]

Re: Strange Curves

In the morning on Mint (T-Mo MVNO) on the 15th I had text messages not send, then things began to work within an hour, then early afternoon phone calling kept being interrupted. One person said they hit a blank when trying to call, nothing at all.

Swapped in a VZW SIM mid-afternoon and calling was fine, texting was fine.

Now back on Mint because better speed, VZW is getting lazy on my connection, I think it's because I'm a long-time customer, although that is about to end.

Anyone have a recommendation for a prepay VZW MVNO? I'd like a backup to rarely use when I need remote coverage.

[Keven E]

Still

Mid-Illinois all the way to Chicago still having *issues.

[martinusher]

Look on the bright side....

I wondered where today's batch of Spam calls had got to ..... its been so quiet......

(OK -- I'd old school. Just plain old if you prefer. I can go 24 hours without getting a phone call or message and survive. It can be done.)