Send Outages-discussion mailing list submissions to
outages-discussion@outages.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/outages-discussion
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
outages-discussion-requ...@outages.org
You can reach the person managing the list at
outages-discussion-ow...@outages.org
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Outages-discussion digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. Re: [outages] [EXTERNAL] Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: ATT cellular
network 2024-02-22 (Rusty Dekema)
2. Re: [outages] [EXTERNAL] Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: ATT cellular
network 2024-02-22 (Christopher Conley)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2024 15:42:28 -0500
From: Rusty Dekema <rdek...@gmail.com>
To: "Chapman, Brad (NBCUniversal)" <brad.chap...@nbcuni.com>
Cc: Andy Ringsmuth <a...@andyring.com>, Outages Discussion
<outages-discussion@outages.org>
Subject: Re: [Outages-discussion] [outages] [EXTERNAL] Re: [EXTERNAL]
Re: ATT cellular network 2024-02-22
Message-ID:
<cajxvgbk8yck5cn8gk3j8vwbcwgor5cf53sr6m5xkgpxc2qs...@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
I'm not Andy, but I will say this:
You seem to be very offended at Andy's criticism of the mainstream
media's lack of understanding of what Downdetector is and is not, and
his sentiment that it is lazy for a news organization not to have
found this out before relying on it as a source. Be that as it may, I
believe that his criticism is entirely correct.
The Associated Press article was factually incorrect when it stated
that "Verizon had more than 2,000 outages and T-Mobile had more than
1,400 outages. Boost Mobile had about 700 outages", as Andy explained.
Reuters was somewhat less incorrect in their claim that "Users of
Verizon (VZ.N), T-Mobile (TMUS.O), and UScellular (USM.N), also faced
disruptions" because they attributed that claim directly to
Downdetector, which did publish those reports. It was still an act of
poor-quality journalism not to have explained the unreliable nature of
Downdetector when using it as a source. At least the article did go on
to note that Verizon, T-Mobile, and US Cellular had been contacted and
stated that their networks were operating normally.
I understand that it may no longer be the norm, but I do not think it
should be unreasonable to expect factual reporting and some basic
level of understanding of sources in large mainstream news
organizations and their work product.
Sincerely,
Rusty D.
On Thu, Feb 22, 2024 at 3:25?PM Chapman, Brad (NBCUniversal) via
Outages-discussion <outages-discussion@outages.org> wrote:
>
> Andy,
>
> Respectfully, no amount of ?garbage? reporting is worth that kind of flaming
> and vitriol.
>
> Or, if you prefer, I can forward your comments to someone in our News
> department, since I work for one of those organizations. I?m sure they?d
> love to hear your insightful feedback on their research skills.
>
> Do I have your permission to share the email unedited?
>
> -Brad
>
>
> > On Feb 22, 2024, at 12:11 PM, Andy Ringsmuth via Outages-discussion
> > <outages-discussion@outages.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >> On Feb 22, 2024, at 1:41?PM, Christopher Conley via Outages
> >> <outa...@outages.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> There have been numerous articles on it, including by AP & Reuters:
> >> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://apnews.com/article/cellular-att-verizon-tmobile-outage-02d8dfd93019e79e5e2edbeed08ee450__;!!PIZeeW5wscynRQ!p1ahQFSwDiuas79nPV3ZYaWPjS76vEGU0wRxGX8UsZDT-u2Ah0ihceAZOrVTxOgUk6bkhuqP3jehcW4XiquMRswC2yUcj0Q$
> >> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.reuters.com/technology/cellular-outage-us-hits-att-t-mobile-verizon-users-downdetector-shows-2024-02-22/__;!!PIZeeW5wscynRQ!p1ahQFSwDiuas79nPV3ZYaWPjS76vEGU0wRxGX8UsZDT-u2Ah0ihceAZOrVTxOgUk6bkhuqP3jehcW4XiquMRswCiEKouZs$
> >> If you don?t trust newswire agencies like AP/Reuters, then you have a
> >> different problem entirely.
> >> And here it is directly from the horse?s mouth:
> >> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://about.att.com/pages/network-update__;!!PIZeeW5wscynRQ!p1ahQFSwDiuas79nPV3ZYaWPjS76vEGU0wRxGX8UsZDT-u2Ah0ihceAZOrVTxOgUk6bkhuqP3jehcW4XiquMRswC3TzLv0Y$
> >
> > FTA above:
> >
> > "A number of Americans are dealing with cellular outages on AT&T, Cricket
> > Wireless, Verizon, T-Mobile and other service providers, according to data
> > from Downdetector. AT&T, who was the hardest hit, is actively working to
> > restore service to all of its customers.?
> >
> > So no, of course I don?t trust AP or Reuters or anyone else when it comes
> > to nitty gritty tech topics. They write an entire article based on ?data
> > from Downdetector? which as we know is garbage.
> >
> > The AP article you cited goes on to say:
> >
> > "Verizon had more than 2,000 outages and T-Mobile had more than 1,400
> > outages. Boost Mobile had about 700 outages.?
> >
> > NO THEY DIDN?T.
> >
> > Gahhhhh. An even halfway competent reporter would have said ?Downdetector
> > users reported more than 2,000 outages on Verizon, 1,400 on T-Mobile and
> > 700 on Boost Mobile. Downdetector information consists of unconfirmed
> > reports from individual users and do not represent official statements from
> > those carriers."
> >
> > The media is so freaking lazy it is beyond disgusting. They take
> > information from Downdetector, which is 100 percent user-submitted and is
> > NOT an official source of anything, and build their entire article on it.
> >
> > So no, none of us should trust the media on these issues. None of us. I
> > specifically DO NOT trust AP/Reuters/etc. because I am more technically
> > competent than their reporters. All of us here are.
> >
> > -Andy
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Outages-discussion mailing list
> > Outages-discussion@outages.org
> > https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/outages-discussion__;!!PIZeeW5wscynRQ!p1ahQFSwDiuas79nPV3ZYaWPjS76vEGU0wRxGX8UsZDT-u2Ah0ihceAZOrVTxOgUk6bkhuqP3jehcW4XiquMRswCtc2Uqbo$
>
> _______________________________________________
> Outages-discussion mailing list
> Outages-discussion@outages.org
> https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/outages-discussion
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2024 21:16:37 +0000
From: Christopher Conley <ccon...@forsmarsh.com>
To: Rusty Dekema <rdek...@gmail.com>, "Chapman, Brad (NBCUniversal)"
<brad.chap...@nbcuni.com>
Cc: Outages Discussion <outages-discussion@outages.org>
Subject: Re: [Outages-discussion] [outages] [EXTERNAL] Re: [EXTERNAL]
Re: ATT cellular network 2024-02-22
Message-ID:
<sj0pr22mb343891a94e64ec8be0c3c7fca9...@sj0pr22mb3438.namprd22.prod.outlook.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
What I'm going to say here is going to make me sound like an ass, but I want
you to understand that that's not what I'm doing, and that's not my intention:
This seems more like a reading comprehension problem than anything else. Let's
break down the relevant parts of the AP article:
> A number of Americans are dealing with cellular outages on AT&T, Cricket
> Wireless, Verizon, T-Mobile and other service providers, according to data
> from Downdetector. AT&T, who was the hardest hit, is actively working to
> restore service to all of its customers.
>
> AT&T had more than 58,000 outages around noon ET, in locations including
> Houston, Atlanta and Chicago. The outages, which began at approximately 3:30
> a.m. ET, peaked at around 73,000 reported incidents. The carrier has more
> than 240 million subscribers, the country?s largest.
These paragraphs establish & elaborate on the problem, and explicitly
identifies the source of data (Downdetector) used in the article.
> ?Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this
> morning. Our network teams took immediate action and so far three-quarters of
> our network has been restored. We are working as quickly as possible to
> restore service to remaining customers,? AT&T and Cricket said in a statement.
This is an objective statement of fact direct from the affected carriers about
the situation.
> Cricket Wireless, which is owned by AT&T, had more than 9,000 outages,
> Downdetector said Thursday.
>
> Verizon had more than 2,000 outages and T-Mobile had more than 1,400 outages.
> Boost Mobile had about 700 outages.
These paragraphs are not statements of objective fact in context to the outage
itself, they are a further elaboration on the data from DownDetector. It's even
explicitly outlined and attributed to Downtector with "Downdetector said
Thursday." That is not repeated in the next paragraph about
Verizon/T-Mobile/Boost outages because it's repetitive and unnecessary due to
the attribution in the paragraph immediately preceding it.
> ?Verizon?s network is operating normally. Some customers experienced issues
> this morning when calling or texting with customers served by another
> carrier. We are continuing to monitor the situation,? Verizon said.
>
> T-Mobile said that it did not experience an outage.
>
> ?Our network is operating normally. Down Detector is likely reflecting
> challenges our customers were having attempting to connect to users on other
> networks,? T-Mobile said.
These paragraphs are objective statements direct from other carriers mentioned
in this article. Both statements explicitly outline that their networks aren't
having issues, and that the "outages" attributed to them likely lie with their
customers having issues contacting customers on the affected network (AT&T).
AP would have used Downdetector or a similar service as its data source because
Verizon/AT&T/T-Mobile/etc do not provide publicly-available maps or data
concerning their outages. The only issues that I have with this article are:
1. They should have included a note explaining that Downdetector is entirely
self-reported data
2. They should have reached out directly to the carriers for comments and
first-party data instead of including only public statements made by those
carriers
And #2 might not even be an issue if AP actually did reach but didn't receive a
response. That's it, thanks for coming to my TED talk.
-----Original Message-----
From: Outages-discussion <outages-discussion-boun...@outages.org> On Behalf Of
Rusty Dekema via Outages-discussion
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2024 3:42 PM
To: Chapman, Brad (NBCUniversal) <brad.chap...@nbcuni.com>
Cc: Outages Discussion <outages-discussion@outages.org>
Subject: Re: [Outages-discussion] [outages] [EXTERNAL] Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: ATT
cellular network 2024-02-22
I'm not Andy, but I will say this:
You seem to be very offended at Andy's criticism of the mainstream media's lack
of understanding of what Downdetector is and is not, and his sentiment that it
is lazy for a news organization not to have found this out before relying on it
as a source. Be that as it may, I believe that his criticism is entirely
correct.
The Associated Press article was factually incorrect when it stated that
"Verizon had more than 2,000 outages and T-Mobile had more than
1,400 outages. Boost Mobile had about 700 outages", as Andy explained.
Reuters was somewhat less incorrect in their claim that "Users of Verizon
(VZ.N), T-Mobile (TMUS.O), and UScellular (USM.N), also faced disruptions"
because they attributed that claim directly to Downdetector, which did publish
those reports. It was still an act of poor-quality journalism not to have
explained the unreliable nature of Downdetector when using it as a source. At
least the article did go on to note that Verizon, T-Mobile, and US Cellular had
been contacted and stated that their networks were operating normally.
I understand that it may no longer be the norm, but I do not think it should be
unreasonable to expect factual reporting and some basic level of understanding
of sources in large mainstream news organizations and their work product.
Sincerely,
Rusty D.
On Thu, Feb 22, 2024 at 3:25?PM Chapman, Brad (NBCUniversal) via
Outages-discussion <outages-discussion@outages.org> wrote:
>
> Andy,
>
> Respectfully, no amount of ?garbage? reporting is worth that kind of flaming
> and vitriol.
>
> Or, if you prefer, I can forward your comments to someone in our News
> department, since I work for one of those organizations. I?m sure they?d
> love to hear your insightful feedback on their research skills.
>
> Do I have your permission to share the email unedited?
>
> -Brad
>
>
> > On Feb 22, 2024, at 12:11 PM, Andy Ringsmuth via Outages-discussion
> > <outages-discussion@outages.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >> On Feb 22, 2024, at 1:41?PM, Christopher Conley via Outages
> >> <outa...@outages.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> There have been numerous articles on it, including by AP & Reuters:
> >> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://apnews.com/article/cellular-att
> >> -verizon-tmobile-outage-02d8dfd93019e79e5e2edbeed08ee450__;!!PIZeeW
> >> 5wscynRQ!p1ahQFSwDiuas79nPV3ZYaWPjS76vEGU0wRxGX8UsZDT-u2Ah0ihceAZOr
> >> VTxOgUk6bkhuqP3jehcW4XiquMRswC2yUcj0Q$
> >> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.reuters.com/technology/cell
> >> ular-outage-us-hits-att-t-mobile-verizon-users-downdetector-shows-2
> >> 024-02-22/__;!!PIZeeW5wscynRQ!p1ahQFSwDiuas79nPV3ZYaWPjS76vEGU0wRxG
> >> X8UsZDT-u2Ah0ihceAZOrVTxOgUk6bkhuqP3jehcW4XiquMRswCiEKouZs$
> >> If you don?t trust newswire agencies like AP/Reuters, then you have a
> >> different problem entirely.
> >> And here it is directly from the horse?s mouth:
> >> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://about.att.com/pages/network-upd
> >> ate__;!!PIZeeW5wscynRQ!p1ahQFSwDiuas79nPV3ZYaWPjS76vEGU0wRxGX8UsZDT
> >> -u2Ah0ihceAZOrVTxOgUk6bkhuqP3jehcW4XiquMRswC3TzLv0Y$
> >
> > FTA above:
> >
> > "A number of Americans are dealing with cellular outages on AT&T, Cricket
> > Wireless, Verizon, T-Mobile and other service providers, according to data
> > from Downdetector. AT&T, who was the hardest hit, is actively working to
> > restore service to all of its customers.?
> >
> > So no, of course I don?t trust AP or Reuters or anyone else when it comes
> > to nitty gritty tech topics. They write an entire article based on ?data
> > from Downdetector? which as we know is garbage.
> >
> > The AP article you cited goes on to say:
> >
> > "Verizon had more than 2,000 outages and T-Mobile had more than 1,400
> > outages. Boost Mobile had about 700 outages.?
> >
> > NO THEY DIDN?T.
> >
> > Gahhhhh. An even halfway competent reporter would have said ?Downdetector
> > users reported more than 2,000 outages on Verizon, 1,400 on T-Mobile and
> > 700 on Boost Mobile. Downdetector information consists of unconfirmed
> > reports from individual users and do not represent official statements from
> > those carriers."
> >
> > The media is so freaking lazy it is beyond disgusting. They take
> > information from Downdetector, which is 100 percent user-submitted and is
> > NOT an official source of anything, and build their entire article on it.
> >
> > So no, none of us should trust the media on these issues. None of us. I
> > specifically DO NOT trust AP/Reuters/etc. because I am more technically
> > competent than their reporters. All of us here are.
> >
> > -Andy
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Outages-discussion mailing list
> > Outages-discussion@outages.org
> > https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo
> > /outages-discussion__;!!PIZeeW5wscynRQ!p1ahQFSwDiuas79nPV3ZYaWPjS76v
> > EGU0wRxGX8UsZDT-u2Ah0ihceAZOrVTxOgUk6bkhuqP3jehcW4XiquMRswCtc2Uqbo$
>
> _______________________________________________
> Outages-discussion mailing list
> Outages-discussion@outages.org
> https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/outages-discussion
_______________________________________________
Outages-discussion mailing list
Outages-discussion@outages.org
https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/outages-discussion
The content of this email is confidential and intended for the recipient
specified in message only. It is strictly forbidden to share any part of this
message with any third party, without a written consent of the sender. If you
received this message by mistake, please reply to this message and follow with
its deletion, so that we can ensure such a mistake does not occur in the future.
------------------------------
Subject: Digest Footer
_______________________________________________
Outages-discussion mailing list
Outages-discussion@outages.org
https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/outages-discussion
------------------------------
End of Outages-discussion Digest, Vol 164, Issue 7
**************************************************
