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AT&T Outage, Why jokerthefool’s recent poll is more than just a question
I appreciate the daily polls jokerthefool posts. Recently, an aptly titled Daily Poll 808 (IYKYK), the question was: Do you use CDs?
Dallas based AT&T has not yet acknowledged, let alone given a reason for why 60,000 of its users experienced an outage this morning. As of this typing, my iPhone still says “SOS” on the top right instead of AT&T and my Pixel 7 Pro says “Emergency Calls Only”. Both showing zero bars of strength.
The fun aspect is that some people were saying this affected 911 services in the wee hours of the morning, though that is not supposed to happen. You were supposed to still be able to make those calls/texts via roaming on other networks, but that was not initially the case. That aspect has started working again.
And to add insult to injury, this also affects the First Responder services that were put in place to work since AT&T won the contract.
I have my issues with AT&T, but they’re not as bad as my issues with T-Mobile and my just general demeanor towards Verizon.
That being said… Who drove to work this morning listening to the radio instead of their streaming services? Who even has a CD Player in their vehicle anymore? I do. I was listening to The Offspring’s Conspiracy of One album. It sounded amazing. And most importantly, it just worked.
How much of your streaming music do you download? How many songs/albums/podcasts/audiobooks/etc do you have access to when you cannot connect to the internet?
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5 Replies
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Thanks for the kind words on my poll. The car I’m driving now has a CD player which is nice since the grocery store I go to is a deadzone for my cell network (Verizon) but CDs work like a charm without internet connection.
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Verizon used to be the de facto carrier in DC as all the metro lines and tunnels were supposed to be covered by them. In truth, that only worked about half the time at best. I think the contract was opened up to allow all major carriers work through the Metro system, but I haven’t heard or cared too much about it since I moved away from DC.
AT&T is headquartered here in Dallas, Texas. I’m more on the Fort Worth side, but I have the same problem. I can’t get a signal to save my life at the local grocery store/town center. You would imagine the city that a cellular carrier is headquartered in should have the whole city covered, but that is not the case.
As for T-Mobile, I was a multi decade Sprint customer until T-Mobile came in and messed everything up. I didn’t have a functional voicemail for nearly a year… The year I was looking for a new job. So that was HIGHLY inconvenient.
Like I said, I have my issues with all three major carriers who are supposed to work… but I don’t have a single issue with CDs, which always work. It used to be that if your CD player broke, you could just swap out the radio with aftermarket like Alpine, Pioneer, or Kenwood. You can’t do that with most cars and trucks anymore. So aside from taking away CD players, they’ve taken away choice. And then something like this happens as a gentle reminder that sometimes a car is just a car and shouldn’t be in charge of driving. Or recording all your data and sending it back to the clouds.
But that’s just my long winded two cents. 😛
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I agree I am in the market for a car and I might get a new one since I’ve got a good cash budget on hand. I do want to homestead and I want to do that with a truck from the late 90s or early 2000s. The amount of gizmo and gadgets have gotten out of hand and the car manufactures have moved away from standard double DINN setups to custom stuff that’s basically impossible to replace outside of a dealer.
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Exactly! I rented a car for a trip last year and the stupid thing thought it could swerve whenever someone got too close to me. That’s great to avoid the collision, except the part where you potentially cause me to hit a completely different car in another lane when I swerve towards them making me the at fault party. I don’t need that feature.
I DO need a swappable radio. But these car manufacturers have this idea that they can tell you how to drive their vehicle that they don’t want you to own flat out, but they get mad you want to change their sound. It’s weird.
I hope you do build out your 90s/00s truck! That actually sounds amazing! I’ll probably buy new because certain areas, like DFW, trucks and sports cars are treated like dirt. So they almost always have issues when they’re sold used. So, unless it’s a sedan, I’m buying new. I’m just not sure which set of headaches (Toyota, Ford, or Ram) I want to have as far as changing out the radio and filling out the sound.But seriously, you start building out an old truck and I’ll donate to the cause! It’s a dying art. LEast I can do is get you a Optima Yellow Top battery or something!
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Thanks the 90s/00s truck is years down the line but if you do feel like supporting me financially, for which I’d be eternally then you can become a paid subscriber on my Substack.
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