outages

Verizon says 4G LTE back up and running

Verizon Wireless said today it has restored 4G LTE service to customers across the country who got stuck on a slower connection for the past day and a half.

The company's network operations team resolved a technical issue last night, but didn't disclose the cause of the problem, which had forced some customers off its high-speed network and on to the slower 3G service since late Tuesday. Some customers had complained of losing 3G access as well, dropping down to the 2G level, which is primarily designed for voice and text messages.

The outage came just a few … Read more

Verizon's 4G network seeing outages nationwide

Verizon Wireless customers across different time zones are reporting trouble accessing the carrier's 4G network.

For the past several hours, users on the Verizon Wireless 4G forum in locations as varied as New Hampshire, Iowa, Baltimore, Phoenix, and San Francisco have all been reporting a loss of 4G network access. Some say they've also lost access to 3G and "1X" GPRS networks.

Verizon has acknowledged a problem with its 4G LTE network but says that 3G, voice, and other data services are unaffected.

The problem doesn't appear to be affecting all users at the same … Read more

Top 5: Tech Turkeys of 2011

2011 was a rather remarkable year for products and companies that were on top, taking a flop.

Here are our Top 5 moves and happenings that were hard to watch, from Flip to HP to Netflix and BlackBerry. It just goes to show that some of the biggest names can lose their way spectacularly.

Adidas shuts down sites after cyber attack

Some Adidas Web sites remain offline today as a result of a "sophisticated" cyber attack discovered last week, the German sportswear company said.

"On November 3, 2011, the adidas Group found out that it was the target of a sophisticated, criminal cyber-attack. Our preliminary investigation has found no evidence that any consumer data is impacted," the company said in a statement on its news stream site. "But, while we continue our thorough forensic review, we have taken down affected sites, including adidas.com, reebok.com, miCoach.com, adidas-group.com and various local eCommerce shops, in … Read more

Time Warner Cable gets hit with 'large' outage

Time Warner Cable's Internet customers nationwide experienced a brief outage this morning, the company has confirmed.

"We appear to be recovering from a large but brief internet outage affecting most of our service areas," Time Warner Cable said this morning in a tweet on its customer service Twitter page. The company then asked customers to "attempt to connect again."

At this point, it appears the outage occurred sometime after 6:00 a.m. PT and affected people nationwide, at least from New York to Texas. A quick Twitter search reveals that many Time Warner Cable … Read more

Siri, we have to talk; our communication stinks

commentary Siri, we have to talk.

It's not me, it's you.

This just isn't working, and I think it's your fault.

The problem is, I can't really tell, because you're being kind of sketchy about it. You go away and come back without telling me. Your parents aren't letting on to any of your recent absent behavior, but I'm reading all about it on Twitter and on the news.

I thought things were going pretty well when we first met. You lived to serve, you told me. You helped me remember meetings, … Read more

Apple's Siri service hit with another outage

Update at 1:40 p.m. PT: Siri's working again on multiple devices here, and users reporting the feature as functional following the earlier outage.

Apple's Siri service, the voice assistant feature that's an exclusive to the recently launched iPhone 4S, is experiencing downtime once again, according to numerous users.

At approximately 11 a.m. PT, users began posting to Twitter that they were experiencing problems getting Siri to respond to voice commands. Affected users reported that the feature activated correctly, but was not connecting to process voice commands. Tests on several iPhone 4S devices owned by … Read more

RIM hit with lawsuit over BlackBerry outage

Research In Motion is facing a possible class action lawsuit in Canada over the global outage that struck BlackBerry customers last month.

The suit (PDF), which seeks class action status, was filed yesterday in Quebec Superior Court "on behalf of individuals who have BlackBerry smartphones and who pay for a monthly data plan but were unable to access their email, BlackBerry Messenger service ("BBM"), and/or Internet for the period of October 11 to 14, 2011," according to a statement by the Consumer Law Group, the Montreal-based law firm that filed the suit.

"The class … Read more

RIM: We have 'an unprecedented track record of reliability'

Research In Motion's BlackBerry services outage earlier this month was undoubtedly a black eye for the company, but the firm's managing director for the U.K. and Ireland says it was an anomaly.

"We have an unprecedented track record of reliability," RIM's U.K. and Ireland managing director Stephen Bates told Mobile News Online in an interview published yesterday. "Our focus is on providing the best communications experience and the feedback we get from our customers is we normally deliver on that."

Bates went on to tell the publication that he estimated U.… Read more

Joy of BlackBerry outage: Fewer Arab car smashes

Anyone who has had to endure "Sex and the City 2" will know that Abu Dhabi is, at least on film, a cheerily idiosyncratic place.

How can one not be overjoyed, therefore, to hear that the locals found a delightfully positive aspect to the recent outage that blanked their BlackBerrys for what seemed like months (in money-making terms, at least)?

The South Atlantic News Agency reports that the outage allowed drivers to concentrate on other things. The road, for example. Other cars, too. And, well other people.

The South Atlantic quoted Brigadier Gen Al Harethi, the director of … Read more