T-Mobile had nationwide problems on Monday.
Graphic from Pixabay / Illustration from CNET
If your T-Mobile service had problems on Monday, you weren’t alone. The third largest mobile operator had widespread problems nationwide affecting its ability to make ET calls and text messages shortly after noon.
After T-Mobile technology president Neville Ray spent more than 12 hours offline on Tuesday morning at 1:03 AM CET, he tweeted that texting and calling would work again.
Voice and text services are now restored. Thank you for your patience when we fixed the problems. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.
– Neville (@NevilleRay), June 16, 2020
Users across the country went to Twitter to record the outage. T-Mobile and #TMobiledown rose to the top of the website’s US trend topics for several hours on Monday. The main problem seemed to be with calls and text, with users saying that the data worked normally.
After speculation later in the day attributed the failure to a faulty network configuration or a DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service) attack, Mike Sievert, CEO of T-Mobile, wrote in a blog post late Monday evening that the failure was due to a “IP traffic problem that caused significant capacity issues in the core of the network during the day.
T-Mobile confirmed to CNET that it was not a DDoS attack.
“I can assure you that hundreds of our engineers and supplier partner employees are working to solve this problem,” he added, “our team will work the night through as needed to make the network fully operational.”
In an update on Tuesday, Ray announced further details and said the outage was caused by a fiber failure that T-Mobile rented from a third-party provider in the southeast. According to Ray, the network operator has set up redundancies to solve this type of problem. In this case, however, the redundancy failed and resulted in an “overload situation”.
“This congestion led to an IP traffic storm that spread from the southeast and caused significant capacity problems across the IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) core network that supports VoLTE calls,” Ray wrote, referring to Voice over LTE Calls. According to Ray, VoLTE and text were fully restored in all regions at 10 p.m. PT on Monday.
Ray confirmed in a tweet at 4:18 p.m. ET Monday that the airline had a failure and said the airline “hopes to have this resolved shortly”.
Our engineers are working to solve a voice and data problem that affects customers across the country. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope that this will be resolved shortly.
– Neville (@NevilleRay), June 15, 2020
In a tweet that was sent shortly after 6 p.m. According to Ray, the network operator continued to deal with calls and texts and recommended that users use apps such as FaceTime, WhatsApp and iMessage for communication. Sievert repeated this recommendation in his contribution.
Unlike traditional SMS text messages or voice calls, these apps send messages and calls through the data side of the network that is still operating.
The teams continue to work as quickly as possible to address the language and news issues that some are experiencing.
Data services are now available and some calls are in progress. Alternative services such as WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage, Facetime etc. are available. Thank you for your patience. https://t.co/uQiGSAFEAH– Neville (@NevilleRay), June 15, 2020
During tests on Monday afternoon, T-Mobile’s data services in northern New Jersey seemed to be working normally, although I was unable to send text messages and had problems making calls with a OnePlus 8 5G.
A CNET editor in New York City could send text and iMessage on an iPhone, but no calls worked on either device. An editor in the San Francisco Bay Area noted that calls were not made through Google Fi, the mobile phone service offered by Google, that operates on the respective T-Mobile, Sprint, and U.S. networks. Cellular based, worked. However, data and text about Fi worked.
In addition to Google Fi, T-Mobile is the underlying network that offers services for several other network operators such as the prepaid brand Metro as well as for Mint Mobile and Simple Mobile.
In tests early Tuesday, the OnePlus 8 5G in New Jersey was able to make and receive calls and text messages, as well as surf the Internet and open videos on YouTube via 5G.
Downdetector.com, a website where users can report outages, has encountered issues with all major mobile operators – AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint.
AT&T and Verizon each stated that their respective networks operate normally and without problems. Tests in northern New Jersey using AT&T and Verizon phones showed no problems with calls, text, or data, except when trying to call a T-Mobile phone via SMS or phone.
“Verizon’s network is working well. We are aware that another network operator has network problems,” a Verizon spokeswoman told CNET in a statement. “Calls to and from this network operator may receive an error message.”
The company also had problems with the spread of Downdetector that its network is down. “Websites like Downdetector.com use limited crowdsourcing data from sample social posts that are often statistically insignificant or factually incorrect,” the spokeswoman said.
“Many factors can contribute to a false report on a third-party website.” Simply summarizing this data can result in erroneous reports of network performance interruptions that lead to widespread misunderstandings among wireless users. “
Sprint, which is now owned by T-Mobile, did not respond to a request for comment.
On Tuesday, FCC chairman Ajit Pai described T-Mobile’s outage as “unacceptable” and said the FCC would launch an investigation. “We ask for answers – and American consumers too,” tweeted Pai.