Major outage hits T-Mobile Sidekick users
Users of T-Mobile's Sidekick have been suffering through a major outage over the past several days that left many without access to the Web or their address books.
Microsoft, whose Danger subsidiary powers the Sidekick service, said it is "working urgently" to deal with the problems, which interrupted data service for most Sidekick users starting at 1:30 a.m. PDT on Friday. The level of disruption has varied, though most users have been affected, Microsoft said.
"We are working around-the-clock to get all our services back online and will continue to post status updates to our valued customers as issues are resolved," Microsoft said. "We thank our customers for their patience and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this disruption has caused."
(Credit:
Corinne Schulze/CNET)
Microsoft said that, as of 6 a.m. PDT Tuesday, it had restored service "for critical applications including address book and calendar, social media applications, IM, web browsing, media player and camera."
"Our goal is to have all services restored to 100 percent functionality by Thursday; however there may be some exceptions," Microsoft said. The software maker bought Danger last year.
T-Mobile offered an updated statement on Tuesday, apologizing for the outage and saying it would credit users for one month's service because of the interruption.
T-Mobile's Sidekick forums are filled with comments from users expressing their frustration over the issue.
Among those affected was Ariel Barco, who said he noticed his service out on Friday night and got his service restored last night. But not all of his friends have been so lucky, he said.
"Many of my friends have Sidekicks and one in particular is still waiting for her address book to be restored as we speak," Barco said.
He said the outage was frustrating since it limited the ability to access social networks and the Internet, which made it hard to plan for the weekend. Plus, Barco said, T-Mobile didn't do a good job of communicating what was going on. "The issue was not communicated to the user base," Barco said. "I found out about the outage on Saturday after checking blogs and T-Mobile forums and T-Mobile's Twitter. I also checked with acquaintances with Sidekicks."
Update 1:50 p.m. PDT: Statement from T-Mobile was added.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
E.g., early last year just before the MS deal was closing, T-Mobile US had a national two-day outage.
And in 2005 there was a global outage which lasted about four days.
When I read MS purchased Danger, I still knew MS couldn't resolve the outage. I think Sidekick network needs to be rebuild from bottom up.
Apparently Microsoft doesn't! What a great place it must be to work somewhere that's so tolerant of mistakes and foul-ups! Now I want to work there... I don't imagine that my lack of qualifications will present the slightest obstacle to my hiring, either.
And its something Microsoft OWNS. Not runs. Microsoft pays the checks. They don't make the managerial decisions. Their developers aren't responsible for the software. The engineers aren't responsible for the hardware.
Re-read the article. The 1st line in the 2nd para says "Microsoft, whose Danger subsidiary powers the Sidekick service," and not "Microsoft, who owns Danger". From that it seems they run it, owning or not is a separate issue altogether.
Now on to more pressing issues.. WHY DID THE CONTACTS HAVE TO BE DELETED?!?!
I figured okay, its an inconvenience but I can access my contacts online via the desktop interface. WRONG! The site is down... And I'm sure we're all swarming the site at the same time which may not be so good.
So I lye in wait for my contacts to respawn or to be able to retrieve my contacts through the site. Until then, I can't talk to my family......
On the upside, a free month of service sounds like a fair exchange. No worries tmobile, I can go without contacts if it means free service.
Ps. My sidekick has been nothing but disappointing overall, reboot errors, etc... in addition to this latest breakdown.
I tried to cancel my contract with them a week before this crap went down too - there was an update to all tmobile policies for the overage fees being increased which voids the original contract - you can also read about this on consumerist..... anyways, I called them and they said despite the changes to the contract that was signed, I was not eligible because I had not gone over my minutes. So in otherwords, because I'm a good customer - I'm not allowed to cancel service with a void contract.... and now THIS. I could have forgiven this if they had the kept the "promise" of always having a back up of my sidekick information; but this almost cost me my job. I'm all for a class action.
I would say you are dumb to keeping your T-Mobile Sidekick for years. I left T-mobile for AT&T iPhone - An iPhone is the best to keep in contact and never have any problem like T-Mobile Sidekick has. However, I am still wondering why all of you are still keeping your T-Mobile Sidekick if they have been repeating problem? Therefore, you shall not be complaining your T-Mobile Sidekick if you are still keeping them, if you're complaining your T-Mobile Sidekick - leave them and join other carriers, don't you get it?
I would say you are deaf and dumb because you are still staying with your T-Mobile Sidekick - If you want to be deaf and smart? As simple as leave them and join other carriers.
Bye T-Mobile Sidekick, Hello AT&T iPhone :)
Wish all you good luck with your T-Mobile Sidekick!
Nobody cares about your opinion. iPhones have no service in San Fran and heavily urbanized areas. Is that not a problem? CNET just covered it heavily a week or two ago.
Go advertise to someone else.
- by gti_gti October 15, 2009 9:38 AM PDT
- Looks like they have not been testing their software and hardware before deployment.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(30 Comments)They should have tested it with a simulator by creating a virtual lab with all cloud hardware and servers.
If they had done this, they would have found the issue very quickly before going public with it.