Reports of Cellphone Internet Outages Across the US on Monday

Aside from the issues several Android users encountered when upgrading to Nougat, cellphone users across the United States came across issues regarding their ability to connect to the internet and make calls. Several users have been able to report their faulty service to a website called downdetector. They provide graphs that show how many reports of unstable or absent cell coverage occur and what time it happens.

Amongst the many providers affected are some of the most popular wireless providers such as T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon. Following some of Verizon’s problems with their network, they released the following statement:

“A connectivity issue caused a service interruption for some of our customers in Wilmington, Jacksonville, and New Bern, NC earlier today. Our engineers worked with our vendor partner to resolve the issue and service was restored by approximately 3:30 pm Eastern this afternoon”

When looking at T-Mobile’s graph, the numbers significantly dropped before midnight. That could either be attributed to a fix or the fact that most people are asleep by then and connection to the internet isn’t noticed when unconscious. As soon as the morning came, the reports rose.

It was clear that something was wrong yesterday but I assumed it was due to the latest version of Android (having encountered a number of problems over the last few months). I would suddenly be bombarded with an influx of messages on messenger, several texts from strange numbers to a guy named Dave, Ebay notifications, and pings with a tiny note reminding me how long it’s been since the last time I’ve opened Duolingo. It wasn’t clear until now, why I would suddenly be blessed with a slightly out of tune song from my phone.