[Outages-discussion] [outages] [EXTERNAL] Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: ATT cellular network 2024-02-22

[Andy Ringsmuth]

> On Feb 22, 2024, at 1:41 PM, Christopher Conley via Outages <outages at outages.org> wrote:
> 
> There have been numerous articles on it, including by AP & Reuters:
>  https://apnews.com/article/cellular-att-verizon-tmobile-outage-02d8dfd93019e79e5e2edbeed08ee450
>  https://www.reuters.com/technology/cellular-outage-us-hits-att-t-mobile-verizon-users-downdetector-shows-2024-02-22/
>   If you don’t trust newswire agencies like AP/Reuters, then you have a different problem entirely.
>  And here it is directly from the horse’s mouth:
>  https://about.att.com/pages/network-update

FTA above:

"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.”

So no, of course I don’t trust AP or Reuters or anyone else when it comes to nitty gritty tech topics. They write an entire article based on “data from Downdetector” which as we know is garbage.

The AP article you cited goes on to say:

"Verizon had more than 2,000 outages and T-Mobile had more than 1,400 outages. Boost Mobile had about 700 outages.”

NO THEY DIDN’T.

Gahhhhh. An even halfway competent reporter would have said “Downdetector users reported more than 2,000 outages on Verizon, 1,400 on T-Mobile and 700 on Boost Mobile. Downdetector information consists of unconfirmed reports from individual users and do not represent official statements from those carriers."

The media is so freaking lazy it is beyond disgusting. They take information from Downdetector, which is 100 percent user-submitted and is NOT an official source of anything, and build their entire article on it.

So no, none of us should trust the media on these issues. None of us. I specifically DO NOT trust AP/Reuters/etc. because I am more technically competent than their reporters. All of us here are.

-Andy