On Feb 22, 2024 one of the leading telecommunication giants experienced a nationwide outage disrupting the country. While this may not seem like an issue at first glance to those with other cell phone and internet providers, this affected the lives of many people in our country. This issue began with reports of cell phones experiencing internet outages starting at 2:30 am and lasting throughout 11:30 am for some individuals. This not only impacted cell service, but it impacted mobile internet as well – (Source Down Detector).
This not only affected the general public but it affected our students and students worldwide. To the general public who require cell service for working jobs such as Uber, Lyft, Doordash, etc…this was a big roadblock for them as they had no way to generate income for a brief period. For students on the other hand this was something of a greater matter. As midterms became prevalent during the week of the occurrence the lives of students could have been impacted in various ways. For those who live on campus and were dependent on the use of AT&T’s internet in their apartment or homes, most were not able to access their canvas courses or use their phones for things such as accessing Gmail, phone calls, text messages, etc…this, in turn, left some students without access to course material, communication, and in some worst case scenarios it resulted in students missing exams due to the lack of reliability AT&T provided.
While some may have thought this primary cause was due to a cyber attack AT&T released a statement on their website that was published by multiple sources. The statement read“Based on our initial review, we believe that today’s outage was caused by the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyber attack”(CNN News) raising relief to customers in panic relating to cyber-terrorism.
While we may put little thought process into the way our mobile devices work or how they connect to the internet when disruption arises in our lives in an impactful manner such as this we begin to question the reliability of our providers and doubt what we already had. For instance, a student at the University said “I always felt confident when I needed AT&T for my fast and reliable internet speed and I felt confident when it came down to being able to use my phone when needed, but it backfired when I needed it the most during my remote exam online. I had no way to contact my professor and the closest building with free wifi was a 10-minute walk from me. How do I know this won’t happen to me again?” (Luke Sonnek – UMN student). This poses the question of reliability for AT&T’s infrastructure and users worldwide raising concerns about this potentially occurring to other cellular towers. AT&T is working on creating a better method of delivering its mission statement to its fullest potential of “Creating connection, Delivering Value” to all consumers worldwide. In my opinion, I believe that AT&T will not only work harder to ensure this never happens to customers again to the best of their ability but that this event will be of use when looking into the future of the company.
As society begins to become more dependent on the use of the Internet for work, communication, and education, the need for reliable and resilient telecommunication networks are needed more than ever. The nationwide outage of AT&T serves as a reminder of the connection we hold with the digital world and the consequences that may occur when we face disruption within our daily lives.
