CONNECTIVITY LOSS - WHAT WE KNOW

First of all, a disclaimer: I am not an AT&T employee so this is not an “official” statement by AT&T. That being said…….

One of the symptoms of loss of connectivity to the AT&T Mobility Servers is a flashing green 3G LED (the bottom LED on the white MicroCell and the top LED on the newer, black model). However, there are quite a few different reason that can result in the flashing green 3G LED.

Since Friday, around 54% of the reported flashing green 3G LED has been from Charter/TWC/Spectrum customers, with a smattering of other ISPs (AT&T, Cox, Frontier, Suddenlink, etc). This would suggest the Charter backbone and routes, but nothing is definitive that can be reported. The problem is compounded by the fact that some reports from non-Charter customers could be related to other issues and not tied to the major issue at all. That makes it extremely difficult to isolate and correct for Support. That’s why folks are being told to go thru the normal troubleshooting methods that Support suggests and that are found in my Tech Guide. This does not appear to be a system-wide problem because other ISP’s are not affected at all (mine for example), and if it was system-wide, I would expect to see more reports from non-Charter customers by now. It may still happen though.

I would not attempt to deactivate/reactivate your account until more information is available. That could just add another layer onto the problem if part of the issue is in fact the AT&T Mobility Servers and/or the database behind it. Charter could be upgrading their system due to the mergers, a major link to AT&T has, or is failing, or there are random problems with the AT&T Mobility Servers. Getting definitive, reportable information is next to impossible right now, but I can tell you for a fact that AT&T has, and is, taking this seriously. Getting all of the principle parties on the same page and moving quickly is a difficult task at best, let alone figuring out what the problem is.

You could all wake up tomorrow morning and find all is well with no explanation at all. In the meantime, there’s not much you can do but possibly try a hard reset (following the instructions in the Tech Guide) and see if you connection comes back. For you more adventurous ones you could run the VoIP test but if it’s bad, there’s nothing you can do because that’s up to your ISP and not AT&T. I have an idea but without confirmation, it serves no purpose to mention it here and now.  I’d just hang tight and hopefully this nightmare will be over soon. For those of you who haven’t done so already, I’d send a pm to CustomerCare (link in my sig) so they can document it.