Wireless

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.

T-Mobile customers are still seething after a major outage on Tuesday that left many people across the country unable to text and call their friends and business associates.

The outage, which started Tuesday afternoon and lasted through the evening before being resolved, affected a wide swath of users, though T-Mobile said that only 5 percent of customers were affected. T-Mobile has yet to say what caused the problems.

"Our sole focus during the service disruption on Tuesday was to quickly restore normal service to affected customers," T-Mobile said in a statement on Wednesday. "We are now working to determine the root cause and facts surrounding the interruption."

After CNET News reported on the outage and asked readers to share their experience, dozens of e-mails poured in.

From a husband unable to connect with his pregnant wife, to small-business owners unable to reach clients, to people getting grief for seemingly ignoring text messages from their significant others, people wrote in with their grievances.

Electrician Casey French, of Flower Mound, Texas, said that the outage is a major issue for his business, given that he can't afford to sit in an office with a landline phone.

"This is a catastrophic blow to businesses like mine, losing a day or more of production means losing not only money, but potential new customers, which in this economy are extremely hard to come by already," French said.

T-Mobile, which confirmed the outage Tuesday afternoon, released an updated statement around 5 p.m. PST, saying that "some T-Mobile customers may be experiencing intermittent service disruptions impacting voice and some data services."

However, plenty of folks e-mailed me to say they were having more than intermittent problems.

Around 6:15 p.m., the company said it was making "good progress restoring voice and messaging service to affected customers." The company added that, "at this time, approximately 5 percent of T-Mobile customers are experiencing service disruptions."

From that point, though, another 50 people e-mailed me to say they were still having problems with their service--many saying that they had multiple phones that weren't working as well as friends who were also having problems of one variety or another.

Some questioned T-Mobile's 5 percent estimate, saying that nearly everyone they knew with T-Mobile was experiencing some sort of outage. (As of the second quarter, T-Mobile had 33.5 million subscribers, meaning that even if 5 percent of users were affected, that would still be more than 1.5 million people.)

John Bystrom, of Elk Grove Village, Ill., said he also doubted the 5 percent figure, given the number of people who packed a local store he stopped in to inquire about the outage. Bystrom said he had just switched from AT&T to T-Mobile to get the BlackBerry 8900, but now hopes to switch back to AT&T.

"Hopefully I can get out without being charged the fee since T-Mobile in my opinion has broken the contract first by not delivering a stable system," Bystrom said.

At 10:30 p.m., T-Mobile e-mailed another statement, to say that things had been resolved.

"T-Mobile confirms it has fully restored voice and text/picture messaging services for customers affected by intermittent service disruptions on Tuesday," the company said. "About five percent of our customers across various geographies were affected for much of Tuesday evening, and by late Tuesday PST their service was restored... We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused our customers."

Some took issue with the way T-Mobile handled the outage.

"My frustration with T-Mobile is not that they had an outage, but the way they buried their head in the sand," said Carlos Ovalle, an architect in Long Beach, Calif. "They have just about everyone's email and could have notified us of the issue. Had that been the case I could have immediately notified customers that rely on being able to reach me at a moment's notice."

Clarence Barnes, a TV and radio host in Los Angeles, said he also objected to how T-Mobile managed the issue. "The problem for me was that if you called my phone, it would say 'The number you dialed is no longer in service'," said Barnes who is looking for full-time work after the radio station where he worked switched formats. "If you get that message it generally means that the person no longer has that number or simply didn't pay the bill--either answer doesn't make me look that responsible."

Tuesday's outage is the latest blow for T-Mobile, which is still working through a month-long ordeal for its Sidekick service, in which some customers have lost their address books and many more are still waiting to get back other data, such as calendars, to-do lists, and photos.

Of course, T-Mobile customers are not the only ones with cell phone issues. AT&T customers regularly complain about service problems with their iPhones. An outage last year interrupted service for BlackBerry customers on various networks across North America. Earlier this year a cut fiber line left many AT&T customers in Silicon Valley without service.

On Wednesday, T-Mobile customers by and large had their service back, but many were still looking for answers. Bystrom said that several hours after calling customer care he got a call back offering a $5 credit. "When I protested that it was unacceptable (I) was pretty much told take it or leave it," Bystrom said.

A massive outage left many T-Mobile USA customers across the country unable to make calls or get data on their cellular phones on Tuesday.

In a statement, T-Mobile said it is working to get its service back up and running.

"T-Mobile customers may be experiencing service disruptions impacting voice and data," the company said in a statement. "Our rapid response teams have been mobilized to restore service as quickly as possible. We will provide updates as more information is available."

The move comes as the carrier is still working to restore data to T-Mobile Sidekick users, many of whom have been without some or all of their information for an entire month.

In a statement on Friday, T-Mobile said many of its Sidekick customers have been able to restore at least their contacts, although it acknowledged not everyone got their address books back.

"There was a very small group of customers for whom we were unable to recover any contacts," the carrier said. It is still working to bring back other data, including calendars, to-do lists, notes, pictures and other data. "We will share more details around this restoration process very soon," it said.

Microsoft, whose Danger service powers the Sidekick, initially thought all data might be lost, but later said it expected to be able to restore most, if not all user data.

Update 5:04 p.m. PT: In a slightly updated statement, T-Mobile said "Some T-Mobile customers may be experiencing intermittent service disruptions impacting voice and some data services."

Reports from users seem to vary. In San Francisco, I was unable to make or receive calls or get e-mail. Meanwhile, a few users in Boston and Washington, D.C. told me that their T-Mobile phones appeared to be working.

If other people want to drop me a note of where they are and what's working or not, I'll get a better sense of things.

5:20 p.m. PT: T-Mobile subscribers in eastern Tennessee, Honolulu, Long Island, N.Y. all e-mailed me to say they, too, were experiencing outages.

Gretchen Wuersching, an accountant who lives in Mount Vernon, N.Y. and works in Manhattan said she has been without service in New York City and Westchester County. Wuersching said she first noticed her service out in Manhattan and was still out in both Westchester County and later when she drove to the Bronx.

Meanwhile, a T-Mobile subscriber in Orange County, Calif. said service was intermittent, while another customer in Denver said her BlackBerry could make calls and handle e-mail, as could friends on T-Mobile's network there, but that text messages were not working.

Several people in the Salt Lake City area said they were having problems, while another in Utah said that calls and text messages were not working, but that Web and e-mail access was continuing.

All in all, it sounds like a very mixed bag for T-Mobile subscribers. Thanks to everyone who wrote in and I'll let you know when I hear more from T-Mobile.

Update 6:24 p.m. PT: T-Mobile issued an updated statement saying it now believes only 5 percent of customers are experiencing outages.

"We're making good progress restoring voice and messaging service to affected customers," a T-mobile representative said. "At this time, approximately 5 percent of T-Mobile customers are experiencing service disruptions. Issues began at approximately 5:30 p.m. Eastern time. Our rapid response team is working continuously to fully resolve this disruption. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused our customers."

The e-mails are literally flooding into my in-box from around the country and far more people are telling me they are experiencing outages of one variety or another than say they have full service. But perhaps that's the nature of who e-mails.

Among the dozens of e-mails of problems I have gotten was this message from Karen Jacobson, an analyst and programmer in North Carolina. "My daughter called me from Chicago to say that her text messaging doesn't work and asked me to call T-Mobile," Jacobson said. "I called them and was told that the network was busy. I then tried texting ... and was unable to text from down here. My friend Crystal called from Florida, on her landline, to tell me that her T-Mobile has not been able to make or accept phone calls for at least an hour (and now her boyfriend is angry cause he thinks she ignored him!)."

For my part, I have data access on my Blackberry Curve, but no ability to make calls. E-mail service, which was out for a time, seems to be back.

Update 10:50 p.m. PT: T-Mobile issued an updated statement saying it has restored voice and text/picture messaging services to customers who experienced outages and apologizing for the inconvenience.

Microsoft on Monday apologized for the length of time it is taking to restore missing data to T-Mobile Sidekicks. The company said it expects to begin restoring data this week, but added that bringing back all data will take longer than that.

In a note on its Web site, Microsoft said that the reason for the delay is that the company wants to make sure that it doesn't risk messing up data as it restores information to users' phones.

"The Danger/Microsoft team is continuing to work around the clock on the data restoration proces," Microsoft said. "We apologize that this is taking so long, but we want to make sure we are doing everything possible to maintain the integrity of your data."

A significant number of Sidekick owners have been without their data since the beginning of the month, when Sidekick data service became interrupted amid a massive outage. At one point, Microsoft feared much of the data was lost, but the company said early last week that things were looking better and later added that it expected to be able to bring back most, if not all, of the data.

"We continue to make steady progress, and we hope to be able to begin restoring personal contacts for affected users this week, with the remainder of the content (photographs, notes, to-do-lists, marketplace data, and high scores) shortly thereafter," Microsoft said.

Although Microsoft has said it expects to recover most if not all lost data for Sidekick users, T-Mobile said on Thursday that new sales of the product remain on hold.

The carrier declined to say when--or if--Sidekick sales would resume.

"We're pleased that Microsoft/Danger is continuing to make progress," T-Mobile vice president David Beigie said in a statement to CNET News. "T-Mobile's sole focus remains on helping Sidekick customers recover from this disruption."

Service for the device has been impaired for going on two weeks. Last Saturday, Microsoft, whose Danger subsidiary powers the Sidekick service, said it believed that any data that was not on users' devices might be permanently lost.

However, by Monday, Microsoft said it was more optimistic and early on Thursday Microsoft issued a letter to customers saying it expected to recover most, if not all, user data.

All models of the Sidekick have remained listed as "temporarily out of stock" on T-Mobile's Web site.

When the T-Mobile Sidekick started having data problems two weeks ago, it was a big pain for nearly all of the company's roughly 800,000 subscribers. But it became particularly rough for the many deaf people who have been among the Sidekick's most loyal fan base.

"It was severely limiting and made me very dependent on others," Carla McCraw, a Web designer from San Antonio, Texas, said in an e-mail interview. "This loss of independence was very stressful on me."

McCraw said she relies on her Sidekick to manage everyday tasks, from keeping up with closures at her son's day care to whether soccer practice will be rained out.

"It was extremely frustrating, not being able to know, and my mother had to call the soccer coach and day care, making me feel extremely inadequate," she said. "I had to rely on the Internet through (alternative services such as) Yahoo and Facebook to let my friends know my Sidekick was down."

The good news, for both deaf and hearing users, is that Microsoft and T-Mobile appear to be making headway at restoring much of the data that, at one time, appeared gone permanently.

But even an outage can be a big deal for those that use the Sidekick as something of a communications lifeline.

"As the outage went on, I became concerned about how my deaf teenage son would be able to communicate in an emergency," Jamie Berke, an About.com guide based in the Washington metro area, said in an e-mail.

"I know he is not the only one," said Berke, who is also deaf. "The outage probably meant that thousands of deaf children who depend on their Sidekicks to communicate with parents were unable to communicate in the event of an emergency. Plus, I myself, would have been unable to communicate in an emergency."

The Sidekick became an early favorite in deaf circles because of its good keyboard, then-state-of-the-art instant-messaging abilities, and ability to connect to relay services. T-Mobile improved things further by adding a data-only option so that deaf users weren't paying for voice minutes they didn't use.

Because the Sidekick didn't evolve as fast as other smartphones, many users--deaf and hearing alike--moved to the BlackBerry and other devices. And after their recent experiences, many of the remaining Sidekick users in the deaf community have said they are considering jumping ship, once their T-Mobile contracts end.

"I am going to look into Sprint's BlackBerry, which more and more deaf people are taking up, and have complimented, and (said) that it is a lot more reliable," McCraw said.

Lisa Gault, a deaf Sidekick owner in Katy, Texas, said she in an e-mail interview that she relies on the Sidekick as a means to stay in touch with her family.

"It's a way for the school to get a hold of me, if something were to occur with my son who is (not deaf)," Gault said.

Gault said that even short of an emergency, it is a problem not to get her e-mail for an extended period.

"It's annoying, as my friends think I'm ignoring them, when in reality, I didn't get the e-mails yet," Gault said. "It really put the deaf community at more of a disadvantage--more so than for hearing people, since we're so reliant on e-mail (devices) to keep in touch."

A prolonged outage for users of T-Mobile's Sidekick device gets even worse as Microsoft's Danger unit says that their lost Sidekick data may be gone forever.

Deaf users sound off on Sidekick outage

Recent problems with the smartphone, long popular in the deaf community, leave many users frustrated and sizing up alternatives.
(Posted in Beyond Binary by Ina Fried)
October 15, 2009 4:00 AM PDT

Microsoft: We've recovered most Sidekick data

In a letter to customers, the software maker said that it thinks only a minority of customers will end up losing any data.
(Posted in Beyond Binary by Ina Fried)
October 15, 2009 1:00 AM PDT

Lawsuits filed over Sidekick outages

Various legal actions claim negligence on the part of Microsoft and T-Mobile led to the recent cell phone woes.
(Posted in Beyond Binary by Ina Fried)
October 14, 2009 4:04 PM PDT

Sidekick's lesson: We learn by failing

The Sidekick outage shows that management hasn't caught up with the cloud, not that network storage is unreliable.
(Posted in Rafe's Radar by Rafe Needleman)
October 12, 2009 10:32 PM PDT

Unanswered questions loom large in Sidekick fiasco

Microsoft and Danger remain largely silent as to both what led to a massive data loss as well as what it plans to do to try to make things right, not to mention what this will all mean for the future of the device.
(Posted in Beyond Binary by Ina Fried)
October 12, 2009 4:39 PM PDT

T-Mobile says Sidekick data may yet return

The wireless carrier says "recent efforts indicate the prospects of recovering some lost content may now be possible." Those who suffer permanent data loss will get $100.
(Posted in Beyond Binary by Ina Fried)
October 12, 2009 6:01 PM PDT

T-Mobile halts sales of Sidekick

Amid a massive failure that led to data loss for owners of the the gadgets, the wireless carrier stops selling new devices online and at its stores.
(Posted in Beyond Binary by Ina Fried)
October 12, 2009 10:11 AM PDT

Sidekick users share their horror stories

In the wake of a massive data loss, tales of woe are coming in from those whose devices have suffered a wicked case of amnesia.
(Posted in Beyond Binary by Ina Fried)
October 12, 2009 9:29 AM PDT

Sidekick outage casts cloud over Microsoft

Although Microsoft inherited Danger's service, this week's massive failure could call into question the broader reliability of depending on keeping data in Redmond's cloud.
(Posted in Beyond Binary by Ina Fried)
October 10, 2009 3:26 PM PDT

Missing Sidekick data may be gone for good

T-Mobile issues apology to users, saying whatever contacts, calendar info, and other data that are currently missing from their Sidekicks are likely to be lost forever.
(Posted in Crave by Matt Hickey)
October 10, 2009 1:40 PM PDT

Major outage hits T-Mobile Sidekick users

Outage that began Friday knocked out data service. Microsoft, whose Danger subsidiary powers the Sidekick service, says it has restored service for "critical applications."
(Posted in Beyond Binary by Ina Fried)
October 6, 2009 11:57 AM PDT

It was only a matter of time, but the T-Mobile Sidekick issue has now spilled over to the courthouse.

A number of lawsuits have been filed, including two filed in federal court in Northern California on Wednesday that allege both negligence and false claims on the part of Microsoft and T-Mobile.

The suits come amid a massive outage of the service that powers the Sidekick, which has hampered data service since early this month and left many users without access to their calendars, address books, and other information. At one point, Microsoft and T-Mobile indicated that any data not yet recovered was probably lost permanently, however the companies said Monday that they were more optimistic about being able to bring back users' information.

One suit, filed on behalf of a Bakersfield, Calif., man "and all others similarly situated" charges that, among other things, Microsoft and Danger failed to use reasonable care in handling Sidekick owners data and that the Sidekick was falsely advertised. That suit seeks monetary damages as well as an order requiring the companies to fix the Sidekicks and service or offer a full refund.

"T-Mobile and its service providers ought to have been more careful the use of backup technology and policies to prevent such data loss" said Ira P. Rothken, an attorney working on that case. "We are hopeful that T-Mobile and the rest of the defendants will do the right thing, use this as an opportunity to redesign the system as a new standard for cloud computing storage, and provide full compensation for the data loss."

Another suit, filed on behalf of Maureen Thompson "and all others similarly situated" seeks unspecified damages for Thompson and others who have lost data as a result of the recent Sidekick problems.

According to her lawyer, Thompson owns a Sidekick used primarily by her daughter, an aspiring model, singer, and songwriter who used her Sidekick to store personal and business contacts, appointments, and even irreplaceable song lyrics not stored anywhere else. The lawyer said that Thompson bought the device "primarily because T-Mobile promised that any data would be protected and available no matter what happened to the phone."

"T-Mobile's initial efforts to reimburse Sidekick users are a step in the right direction, but fail to sufficiently compensate Sidekick users for this disastrous loss of data," Thompson attorney Jay Edelson said in a statement. "T-Mobile and Microsoft promised to safeguard the most important data their customers possess and then apparently failed to follow even the most basic data protection principles. What they did is unthinkable in this day and age."

In that lawsuit, Thompson's lawyers argue why the outage of the Sidekick was particularly devastating, noting the device's cloud-based architecture in which the primary copy of the data is stored, not on the devices, but on servers operated by Microsoft's Danger unit.

"Further complicating the data loss is the fact that Sidekicks, unlike iPhones, BlackBerrys and other smartphones, are not designed to sync locally with a user's personal computer without additional software and hardware," the suit states. "This means that most users were not able to backup their data locally, but were encouraged and required to rely on Microsoft/Danger."

Microsoft declined to comment on the lawsuit, but, a representative said on Wednesday that the company is "obviously very sorry for the inconvenience that this situation has caused Sidekick users, and we are working around the clock in an effort to recover and restore the data for any affected users. While it is still too early to say for sure, we announced on Monday that our engineering teams were increasingly optimistic."

For its part, T-Mobile said in a statement that it "does not comment on pending litigation."

"We are focused on helping our Sidekick customers recover from this recent service disruption and are continuing to support Microsoft's ongoing efforts to address and resolve the Danger platform issues," the company said.

T-Mobile has halted sales of the Sidekick amid the ongoing issues.

So, just what the heck happened?

That's one of many questions that Sidekick owners and the broader tech community are asking after one of the largest data failures in recent memory.

Two days after warning customers that their contacts, calendar, and other information may be gone, Microsoft and T-Mobile spent most of Monday in silent mode as they continued to work to try to recover the data from thousands of Sidekick owners.

Microsoft has said that the hardware failure that caused the problem took out both the primary and backup copies of the database that contained Sidekick users' information. But the question remains, why wasn't there a true independent backup of the data?

T-Mobile has said that it is exploring what to do to try to compensate customers who have lost their data, but as of 4:30 p.m. PDT on Monday had not offered a promised update on where things stood.

For those who don't have their data, there was little to do but vent on various forums and hope that the data recovery efforts bear fruit. (There may be some hope on that front, as some users did report some data re-appearing on their devices on Monday).

Still, those who do have some or all of their information on their device, might want to back that up pronto. Enthusiast site Hiptop3.com and T-Mobile itself have offered up a few ways to back up contact information, in particular.

And, because it bears repeating, T-Mobile is warning those who do have information on their device not to reset their Sidekick, take out the battery, or let the device fully run out of power.

... Read more