Cell phone problem

[Hank]

This may not be the best place to ask this question because all you old fogies were probably in bed at midnight, :-).... but here goes.......

Last night at approx. midnight ( I am not sure of the exact time altho I did receive a text at 11:32 Pm ), both my wifes phone and my phone wouldn't receive or transmit any calls. We both are on Sprint. This lasted until after 2 am. Then both phones started opertaing correctly. Since we were at a party, I had a couple different people try to call me. They got to my voicemail, but our phones wouldn't ring. They had different carriers.

Anybody else stay up late enough to see if this happened to their phones?

Hank

[Jim Elbrecht]

Hell, youngster--- I was asleep for an hour by midnight. And what's a cell phone? You in prison or somethin'?

Did you try clickin' the receiver handle and crankin' at the same time. Sometimes the operator is jes sleepin and you gotta wake her up.

-snip-

[George]

Our phones are on VZW so no idea what might have been happening on Sprint. What you described could be something as simple as problems at the local cell or nationwide.

[Bob Villa]

[SBH]

[Steve B]

[DT]

The Y2K problem finally surfaced... as the Y2.011K problem.

[Hank]

Shhhhhhhhh.........don't tell them. :-)

Hank

[Hank]

I'm trying but I don't remember much. Only that the phones didn't work. :-)

Hank

[Steve Barker]

a typical sprint bullshit. a few people called to wish happy new years and the system overloaded. Nothing new.

[krw]

I looked back to see if it was Stormy with the problem.

[hallerb]

a typical overloaded system response, common around here during weather and traffic emergencies.

the system just stalls.

imagine what will happen the next time terrorists get us bad like 9 11: (

[krw]

It already happened during 9/11, and the power outages in the NE.

[willshak]

There were power outages in the NE on 9/11? I do know a lot of TV stations went off the air when the second tower collapsed since a lot of their antennas were on the roof. I was watching CNN when it fell and CNN went off the air, but other stations whose antennas were not on the tower still were broadcasting..

[krw]

Seperate issues.

[Roy]

e:

=3D=3D Look up the word separate....it most likely means something else than seperate does.

=3D=3D

[aemeijers]

No, the cell system was on its knees from overload. Happens whenever there is a big storm or earthquake, too. Sometimes even happens right as some damnfool sports championship is finishing. Some PDs are moving some of their comms to cell networks- I hope they keep their real radios, too. (Not to mention the related issue of radio links between relay towers being via internet, in some cases, now.)

It'd work a lot better if all the carriers shared the towers and pipes between them. Without the need for so much duplicative hardware of non-interoperable standards, they could afford to build in a lot more capacity/redundancy. US is really behind how the rest of the world does cell service, methinks.

[krw]

The cell companies move portable cell equipment into stadiums to (try to) handle the overflow. Some of it makes a hash of other comms when they fire it up.

Largely illegal. If there was only one network, where is the competition to make it better? ...or even usable?

[aemeijers]

The same way copper landlines worked for 100 years. Competing phone companies (yeah, there were some even before the Big Breakup), but a common set of technical standards, and they were all interconnected. All the carriers could sell their tower infrastructure to a holding company that would act as a common carrier, and sell capacity to all comers. Like roaming, but invisible to the end user. Sorta like the fiber and copper long-haul lines are done now. You book the circuit through one contracting point, and they rent the capacity wherever needed to get from point A to point B. For all intents there is one network, even though several dozen companies own the physical infrastructure. But it is all COMPATIBLE. Company X won't string fiber along a route that they know Company Y has excess capacity that they can rent cheaper than stringing their own.

As to the 'illegal' part- basic utilities are almost always monopolies, or close to it.

[krw]

NO THANKS! Phone calls were ridiculously expensive before the breakup.

...and there would be no incentive to improve the system.

The only thing less efficient than the free market is a less free market.

They are not monopolies, thank &deity. What you suggest is either collusion (illegal) or a government takeover (far worse), Commisar AEM.