Utility Outages (elec-gas-cable-etc)

[Wrightwood]

[Wrightwood]

Have not lost power Elm and Linnet

[Tom]

Never lost power Twin Lakes Dr. Below Oak.

[ForestGal]

Came back right after 6 on Edna near Acorn. 
 

[Wrightwood]

[Ultimate Internet Access]

   9:18pm, finlly got a buzz off my phone telling me it picked up signal...Heard there was a cable severed in Phelan that knocked out all the LandLine Com structure.
 
   First thing I thought of was that dam excavator in sheep creek at desert front clawing away....anyway DSL is up again after a 6 hour down time.

Spectrum backhaul is out, which Verizon uses as their tower.

--Wes

[Tursiops]

Called 611with wi fi calling.. Verizon said cell service is out and no projected time to be back

[in my dreams]

T-Mobil/Mint Mobile is out as well.

[lwt42]

I have a super-cheap VoIP line, which I only keep for backup.

It seems reliable enough.  No free long distance and pay by the minute, which is fine when a backhoe digs something up.

[Ultimate Internet Access]

If you have UIA Fiber  just turn on WiFi Calling on your cell

[tt2468]

Incredible, AT&T down too. Kinda wild to me that all the carriers are using spectrum transit and nothing else. Must be one facility with all the carriers. Maybe they need to be using UIA or Frontier IP transit too

[EQC]

I have a super-cheap VoIP line, which I only keep for backup.

It seems reliable enough.  No free long distance and pay by the minute, which is fine when a backhoe digs something up.

The Ooma device is pretty good for this purpose for us. Once you buy the device ($200 some years ago...under $100 now), the basic service is "free" -- you just pay the monthly government taxes and telecom fees of about $5, and calls within the US are free/unlimited I think. There are upgrades (for a monthly fee) and fancier devices and phones...but the "free" basic option has been reliable for us as our house phone for several years.

[Ultimate Internet Access]

Incredible, AT&T down too. Kinda wild to me that all the carriers are using spectrum transit and nothing else. Must be one facility with all the carriers. Maybe they need to be using UIA or Frontier IP transit too

Yes, nowadays a provider should have two backhaul circuits. Even if you have to buy from the competition, nothing wrong with that.
There is a Spectrum Fiber cut measured from our office at 44,000 feet (over 8 miles) - They were looking for it last night.

--Wes

[SkierBob]

which is fine when a backhoe digs something up.

"Backhoe fade" or "JCB fade" is a term coined by the telecommunications field to refer to accidental damage or complete severing of a communications cable ...

[lzuber]

Regarding the cellular / Spectrum outage:

An update on the cell phone / Spectrum outage for all who are affected:
Spectrum stopped troubleshooting last night due to icy dangerous conditions.  They will start troubleshooting again this morning between 9 and 10.  This is affecting all cellular in town T-Mobile, Verizon, A T and T etc.  The break is up 8.2 miles from Wrightwood.  UIA is still up and running because we have two circuits feeding Internet here in town.  If you have UIA,  use your cell phone to make calls by enabling wifi calling on your phone.
No estimate on when this will be repaired yet.  They are troubleshooting the issue and it takes time to find the break.  Conditions are certainly not helping.  I'll post more as I hear.

[lwt42]

Incredible, AT&T down too. Kinda wild to me that all the carriers are using spectrum transit and nothing else. Must be one facility with all the carriers. Maybe they need to be using UIA or Frontier IP transit too

I've been trying to find the gate to the cell site and finding out who actually runs it.  I suspect Crown-Castle or American Tower, who then leases capacity to the three major carriers.

Aside from cost, the site owner could put in the necessary redundancy, but that's a cost, and it's not required.  Same with backup power, they don't seem to have more than a few hours.

I admire UIA for having redundant feeds (the Sheep Fire took out both, but they're planning on fixing that).

[lwt42]

The Ooma device is pretty good for this purpose for us. Once you buy the device ($200 some years ago...under $100 now), the basic service is "free" -- you just pay the monthly government taxes and telecom fees of about $5, and calls within the US are free/unlimited I think.

Main point being that you have something that does not rely on any one fiber, or any cell provider.

I use a company called VoIP.ms for service.  It's measured, but it's $0.85/month.  That's connected to a SIP adapter (Grandstream HT801), and that has a phone jack, and an ethernet jack.  The adapter supports pulse dialing, so I have a vintage rotary phone (it was a gift -- THANKS!).

I've seen what UIA has for backup power, they're staying up.  On my end, I have a good UPS for the internet/WiFi.

There are less technical solutions, but this was fun to put together.

[Ultimate Internet Access]

I've been trying to find the gate to the cell site and finding out who actually runs it.  I suspect Crown-Castle or American Tower, who then leases capacity to the three major carriers.

Aside from cost, the site owner could put in the necessary redundancy, but that's a cost, and it's not required.  Same with backup power, they don't seem to have more than a few hours.

I admire UIA for having redundant feeds (the Sheep Fire took out both, but they're planning on fixing that).

Each of the Carrier's have a piece of the location.. Each of the carriers are responsible for their backhaul. They just bought one backhaul.  We have Fiber up there.. I will try to contact them again, but you can only lead a horse to water..

--Wes

[Ultimate Internet Access]

Regarding the cellular / Spectrum outage:

An update on the cell phone / Spectrum outage for all who are affected:
Spectrum stopped troubleshooting last night due to icy dangerous conditions.  They will start troubleshooting again this morning between 9 and 10.  This is affecting all cellular in town T-Mobile, Verizon, A T and T etc.  The break is up 8.2 miles from Wrightwood.  UIA is still up and running because we have two circuits feeding Internet here in town.  If you have UIA,  use your cell phone to make calls by enabling wifi calling on your phone.
No estimate on when this will be repaired yet.  They are troubleshooting the issue and it takes time to find the break.  Conditions are certainly not helping.  I'll post more as I hear.

Yes. There is a Fiber break 8.33 miles from as measured from our office in town. There is no obvious damage by just looking visually. It makes things quite a bit more difficult. But they have a method (Optimum working for Spectrum). It takes time to whittle it down when you can't visually see the damage.

--Wes

[tt2468]

Running an MTR to Cloudflare I see it's not going through the normal iBGP route which it normally does to get to Any2West. Instead, it's using Fronteir transit. I guess that probably means that UIA's dark fiber connection to Coresite LA1 is at least partially via Spectrum?