T-Mobile says software error behind outage

T-Mobile said on Wednesday that a software glitch was to blame for a massive outage on Tuesday that left many customers unable to send or receive calls or text messages.

"After investigating the cause, we have determined that a back-end system software error had generated abnormal congestion on the network," T-Mobile said in a statement. "T-Mobile has since implemented additional measures to help prevent this from happening in the future."

The wireless service provider did not say which software caused the issue.

"We again apologize to those customers who were affected and may have been inconvenienced," T-Mobile said. I've also asked the carrier what, if any, compensation it plans to give those who were without service.

The service disruption began on Tuesday afternoon and lasted, for some, until late into the evening Pacific Time.

T-Mobile has stated that the outage affected about 5 percent of its users.

[h_tom]

It would be nice if they offer compensation. I could not make or receive calls from 5:30pm until after midnight eastern time in the DC area.

[fweinshenk]

h_tom how are you going to base how much compensation your suppose to get? just because you weren't able to make calls after normal business hours. Its absolutely ridiculous to even suggest that. Outages happens... When power outages go out do we instantly expect compensation? No... It happens, nothing is perfect no matter what kind of measures are taken.

[gerrrg]

Just call customer service and complain; every cell phone carrier provides some sort of monetary benefit for a loss of access.

[PhaseDMA]

If the power goes out because the power company messed up then yes. Of course I expect compensation. And really the only thing that isn't the power companies fault during a power outage is if the weather caused it.

[Random_Walk]

"If the power goes out because the power company messed up then yes. Of course I expect compensation."

In that particular case, you do get compensation, and it is exact: You don't pay for the electricity you're not using. Anything above that, you have no right to demand or expect.

Same with mobile service, come to think of it, with one caveat: they should compensate you (pro-rata) off the ordinary monthly charges for the time spent not able to access their services.

[banzairx7]

I'm in Austin and I was down for the exact same period of time. I highly doubt it was just 5%.

[cwang4ever]

My wife got home with anger on November 3rd, 2009. That afternoon after work, she couldn't make a phone call from her cell phone. She carried plenty of goods both hands, and she wanted my help but she just couldn't reach me from the phone. I was sleeping on sofa until she entered the house and woke me up with anger. I supposed to open the door and helped her out on her stuff, but I did not. I tried to call 611, but failed. I wonder if T-mobile can fix that problem forever or I will switch to other carrier after my contract ends.

[sonji3]

In New York, their service is spotty anyway, unless you live in Manhattan. There were many people in Tmobile store near Wall Street and most of us were understandably UNHAPPY. I switched from Verizon due to cost but I'd rather pay for good service than no service. 10 months left and counting.

[mdljunk]

i read online somewhere that they offered someone who called in to complain a $5 credit. amazing. especially for the businesses out there that relied on tmobile for their business communications.

[thenorthernline]

I'm in the Orlando-Tampa area and was down for several hours.

[jbsutts]

It is not true that the outage is over. My phone is fine but wife's phone can only place outgoing calls, it cannot recieve phone calls, texts or voicemails. I just talked to tech support and they said that the outage was still going on. I think they should prob say that on their website instead of saying that everything is fixed now.

[gerrrg]

Can't wait to see the threats to leave the public electric utility when the power goes out...

[ckh1272]

The difference is that you don't get charged for electricity you don't use (i.e. power outages), unless you're one of those poor souls that gets an "estimated" bill. A simple nominal deduction on the cell phone bill would take care of most of the complaints.

[wirelesscaller]

Agreed ckh1272, if it was a "software" error then with that knowledge they could simply identify which customers were affected and automatically apply a credit on their account. Will they? No, you have to call in, wait 20-30 minutes, and then they'll credit the measly $5. These types of outtages should always be auto credited, they can see which lines were down for how long and it should pro-rate accordingly.

[Vegaman_Dan]

@chk1272:

You're right on the estimated bill thing. When we had a severe storm in our area several years ago, many people were without power for a week or more. We weren't using any power, but as the power meters weren't running either, the utlity billed us for what they thought we would use based on prior usage- even though they acknowledged no actual power was provided. Think it's illegal? Nope, not our our state and not with the sweetheart deals made with the state government.

Later on, the utlity was approved a 'temporary' rate hike for one year to make up for the money they would have otherwise earned but didn't actually give service for. They expected to make $X amount, but only made $N. Rate hike was imposed to make up the difference and was to last a year. Four years later, that 'temporary' hike is still in place.

The utility was bought up by a foreign investment group and they have announced plans to double the rates as soon as they are permitted to bring the rates up to that of the northeastern US where the profits are higher. Illegal? Nope. After all, its not a monopoly- you're free to use flashlights if you want, after all.

[Dan7637]

and why do people bash at&t when t-mobile royally screws up like this bad

[brettotte1]

I realize everyone complains about their monthly bill, but then you realize how little you're paying on a daily basis for your phone service. If your plan is $60/mo I'd give the entire day of service which would be $2 credit, not $5.

[jlopezcnet]

they must have upgraded to Windows 7 recently.

[blackspyder1]

no. Why bring up Win/Mac flaming in a post where it does not belong.

[Vegaman_Dan]

As T-Mobile has bragged about their use of open source and Linux, I don't think it really applies.

[msievers]

Uh, most of the mobile carriers back end systems are running Linux/Unix implementations. And all phones on our family plan (5 phones) were still barely receiving calls, texts were intermittent and MMS was out of the question at 10am on the 4th. We are in Lakewood, CO and Tmobile is a major carrier in this area - everyone I know on Facebook had complaints about Tmo service, so I highly doubt the 5% figure.

[wirelesscaller]

Do you expect any company to be honest and throw out the honest numbers and figures? Look at MS and the xbox360, MS claims a very low rate of failure (about 5%) but many third party insurers claim a much higher rate (about 30%), I work for Tmobile and know it's much higher than 5%, I don't access to see the direct numbers but when customer's hold time is 30+ minutes it indicates more than 5% of them are calling.

[tgrenier]

Instead of complaining about the outage, enjoy it.

[Static-X-Machina]

5%?
*chortle*
If it really was only 5% being affected then why is Cnet even bothering to cover it?
30% to 45% if not more I can understand.
5% shouldn't even be enough to make a blog post about it.

[Patroness]

I have five lines with tmobile and as of nov 4th at 10 pm one of the lines was still unable to receive calls or send/receive text messages. I told the tech guy to activate a different/new sim card on my bad line, and it fixed the issue completely. I had spent nearly two hours on the phone with many techs with no resolve prior to the sim card being replaced.

[Patroness]

And the techs told me there were still many many customers without service, and that they had no resolution as of yet. The technician filed a ticket letting the engineers know that a sim card card replacement fixed the issue for me.

[Mike Acker]

I've had numerous similar problems on my Sprint/NEXTEL. The last one was when the put all the BOOST phone on the IDEN net -- which is supposed to be for NEXTEL units only.