Customers complain of AT&T U-verse outages
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(Updated 4:28 p.m.) AT&T U-verse customers in Atlanta and other parts of the network blasted the company on social media Tuesday with complaints of outages to their high-speed Internet, digital TV and home phone services.
The company said problem, blamed on a computer server, is believed to have affected fewer than 6,000 of its millions of customers in the Southeast and Southwest.
In addition to complaints in metro Atlanta, problems were reported as far west as Texas and Oklahoma, and south as Florida. Customers vented on Twitter and Facebook about being without U-verse service for hours. They were also angry about long waits on the phone with AT&T customer service.
Tweeted @GSUAmanda: “@Uverse We’ve been patient, we know your “techs/engineers” are working, we know you’re sorry. Give us something we DON’T know. #uverse”
Some customers reported that problems with U-verse began Monday, although AT&T said it was difficult to say exactly when the problems began.
Customer Tamara Robison of Duncanville, Texas, complained Monday on Facebook: “This was my day off and no TV or internet for 9 hours now. No explanation and no expected time for it to be fixed. This is unacceptable. No inauguration for me.”
Asked @EricRitchie on Twtter, “@ATT Will I be receiving a credit for the inconvenience? @uverse is far too expensive to be shorted service availability.”
AT&T spokesman Lance Skelly told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution no plan had been worked out so far about credits to accounts. He also said AT&T doesn’t know when the “complicated fix” to a server that supports the U-verse system will be completed.
“We have been working around the clock and are making progress on resolving the issue,” Skelly said. “We apologize for any inconvenience to our customers.”
The spokesman said only “a limited number of AT&T customers in some markets” were affected.
That was little consolation to customers who took to Twitter to complain. “It’s been over 24 hours without TV thanks to #Uverse #at&t so annoyed!!” tweeted @nancyozon
On Facebook, Courtney Crawford posted: “I live in NC and I’ve been without Internet for 24 hours possibly more, I was told it would be back up in 6 hours but obviously not, I have a fiancé overseas and I can’t even talk to him!!!!”
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179 comments Add your comment
Who Cares
January 23rd, 2013
6:37 am
What did people do years ago without technology? People spend time with your kids….a perfect opportunity! Every company has outages. That’s technology! You can live without on-line gaming. UVERSE is great, no problems in 3 years.
BobTheBigGeek
January 23rd, 2013
6:45 am
Been down since about 11 AM on Tuesday. DSL link is “flapping” – getting signal, losing signal – continuously. I need this back up because I work from home. Luckily, I had gotten a Verizon hotspot when I was in New York during Sandy!
Barbara
January 23rd, 2013
8:08 am
According to a tech this morning, a limited amount of customers is now 2.5 million.
My service has been out since 2:40 am EST Tuesday, I could not find anything out online at work yesterday through the ATT website, last night & this morning I had two horrible waits of over 20 minutes each time with the most awful hold/wait music designed to get you to hang up. ATT if you had been honest and advised people on the site, there would be a whole lot less angry customers. I think EVERY ATT employee, especially top management should be made to wait on hold for 20 minutes for ATT customer/tech support help.
Marsh
January 23rd, 2013
8:50 am
Comcast will screw you for being a “loyal” customer by not offereing you any promotions plus asking for another $10/mo for HD service and only giving you about 70 channels under the so-called expanded basic. When my 10 year old cell phone died, I got a new phone at an ATT store and let some 14 year old sales girl talk me into going with Uverse. We’ve had it for a month. It pixellates, skips, and the remote isn’t responsive on main DVR box – even the volume. I’m not loving it, but for the same price we were paying Comcast we get about 500 channels (a lot of crap, but still..some premium upgrades), HD service and a DVR. Who cares about that stupid wireless TV crap? Like somebody’s moving a TV around to watch it? Please. What I really hate is how full of bloatware and the endless texts and emails from ATT that nickel and dime you to death. The salesperson told me we’d be able to re-up with another promotion in a year’s time, something Comcast wouldn’t allow. I now think that wasn’t true, but had no reason not to believe her at the time. We’ll see. I do get live people answering my calls so far, and have not spoken to anyone in India – where my job is about to go. I go to work for the time being, and don’t think we’ve been down but a lot of people at work are commenting on no service.
In other words, probably back to Comcast next Dec, if I can still afford it, that is. At least that service rarely went out.
Roland
January 23rd, 2013
8:52 am
I was told by a customer service representative that the outage covers 90% of their customers.
Marsh
January 23rd, 2013
8:53 am
I’m in the lucky 10%? Yea, me.
Steve
January 23rd, 2013
9:02 am
Outage in Raleigh North Carolina. Going into second Day. Cant even talk to anyone to complain.
Van
January 23rd, 2013
9:08 am
I am still without service since Monday night 1:30am. Tech say’s they are working on the problem. Really.
KC
January 23rd, 2013
9:23 am
I’ve been without AT&T services for almost 48 hours now. I’m happy to read a book or walk the dog instead of watching TV, but that is not the issue. No access to news for two days. No phone line for two days. No ability to work from home. One day of outage, okay. Three days? Not acceptable.
Marsh
January 23rd, 2013
9:28 am
And there lies the problem with these TERRIFIC bundling deals. What a rip off.
Ma Bell..got the ill communication.
J j
January 23rd, 2013
10:17 am
Down for 30 hours – suggestions for bundled folks – call AT&T and have them forward your home phones to your cell – put up a ‘vacation’ message on your small (It really doesn’t have to be a nice message if you feel like pointed comment about Uverse service)
Dwhitlock
January 23rd, 2013
10:29 am
oh please everyone give me a break if you think switching to another company is going to cause you to never lose service again you are crazy it happens to every company! I have had uverse for about 3 years now and when a big storm came through my town my box on my house was struck by lighting and that was on a sunday and guess what they came out to my house on a Sunday at 6pm at night and stayed till 8:30 untill the issue was fixed now that is customer service!!!!!! no other company I have been with has given me service like that. oh yea and guess what every company I have been with the service has went out which usually took a couple of days for them to come and fix! its just like you power company the lights do go out somtime!!
Jager
January 23rd, 2013
10:33 am
So the rep told me that she was emailing me something about how to get back on line. Had to remind her that it would be hard to read with NO SERVICE. They will tell you nothing but they are aware when you call. We have multiple smart phones and $200 of cable monthly on top of that. All will be switched by this weekend. I am the customer. I am being ignored. My entire neighborhood is out but since its “limited” I guess we dont matter.
Matt
January 23rd, 2013
10:52 am
Ours was out for more than 24 hours. We’ve had at least a dozen outages in two years. I thought Charter was bad, and they are, but so far Uverse has been worse.
Tommy
January 23rd, 2013
10:56 am
Well I have had U-Verse for over 3 years now and this is the real outage I have ever had. I am actually surprised like with any new technology, unforseen issues can surface. True, some lessons are probably going to be learned by AT&T but at least the service is by far much better than Comcast. You have to understand how it works to appreciate the technology. Comcast has x # of channels to choose from, U-Verse has unlimited capablities as each channel is delieverd by demand.
Marsh
January 23rd, 2013
11:53 am
Tommy, Uverse has packages just like every other company. Sure, you can “add” channels wit the click of a button. Which upgrades your package and adds another $30 to your bill.
Terrific.
BAS
January 23rd, 2013
12:19 pm
My service was back on by the time I got home at 5 pm. It went out on Monday evening. I do like Uverse, I havent been with them long but for what I wanted in cable service, it is more affordable and better than what I had previously.
H.E. Pennypacker
January 23rd, 2013
1:13 pm
My service was spotty yesterday, (dropped several business calls), and completely out today. The customer service line, 800-288-2020, provides an automated message of a network outage and then encourages you to hang up by saying their agents have no additional information.
I certainly would hate to inconvenience AT&T by clogging up their customer service network. Please forgive my insolence in hoping for more information.
Tip
January 23rd, 2013
3:17 pm
Come clean U-Verse, what’s really going on here? Down for 29 hrs and counting…
Stephanie Riley
January 23rd, 2013
3:26 pm
2 days without service in Oklahoma.
RegD
January 23rd, 2013
4:56 pm
I have been without Internet, Phone, and TV since early Monday AM in Memphis, TN. The ATT tech said they did not know when the service would be back up. Posts have said only 6000 customers have been inconvenienced. Do we really believe that? NOOOO.
Van
January 23rd, 2013
5:11 pm
I have been down sence Monday 1:30am. Has anybody service been restored?
oldfart
January 23rd, 2013
6:45 pm
This has all of the earmarks of a DoS attack and they don’t want to admit it to keep from exacerbating the issue. And to the idiot savants, for me this is not a loss of recreation to me but my occupation. Just because you only use the net for online gaming, porn, etc. doesn’t mean everyone is like you. The loss of my television service is inconsequential compared to having to spend my day at McDonald’s without my resources. In the old days I kept a POTS line for a dial up backup but that is no longer feasible as an option.
Frodo
January 23rd, 2013
8:16 pm
It most certainly is a DoS attack. It’s coming from the same group that hacked emails on this server over the last 2 weeks. AT&T ignored the complaints by telling everyone it’s nothing, just change your password. Now we’re all paying the price. Lets just hope the earlier comment about the 25this not correct.
Steve in Raleigh
January 23rd, 2013
9:45 pm
overall POOR infrastructure?…both cable and phone are still out…took my laptop to McDonald and worked …interesting….called ATT U Verse 3 xs today – very polite front line employees – they agreed more updates should be made to customers as to a hard line turn on date……an ATT spokesperson advised 1% of their customer base was effected …as if that was to celebrate. SHAME.
Steve in Raleigh
January 23rd, 2013
9:47 pm
hell yeah.
Neeexxxxxxttttt
January 24th, 2013
9:23 am
I am in the ATL area, lost connectivity yesterday around 3 in the afternoon ~ while I was working! I was frustrated at first, called AT&T to report problem (not knowing then of the area wide outage) and was dealt with politely by a non-accented English speaking rep. I was offered a reduction on next month’s bill for being inconvenienced. Fine service. Ok, did what could be done, now what? People, I had to laugh at myself for being momentarily freaked out by my cord being yanked from the wall. How stupid! Picked up a book and snuggled down with a cup of coffee.
Mel
January 24th, 2013
3:57 pm
After reading all the comments I wanted to put in my two cents. We only received our uverse internet last Thurs. 1-17-13 and was told that it would not be available until 8pm that night. We waited until 8pm and it still would not connect so our FIRST phone call was made. We were advised that it would take 4 to 6 hours before we would be up and running. Our next problem was Monday 1-21-13 we tried to sign on at 8:30pm to skype with the parents. No internet. We called the number and also got the pre-recorded message about the entire system being down. Tues. morning 1-22-13 the “green” lights were on again and it ran with no problem during the day but the evening it went down again. Tech support was called and we were told the system in our area was up and running again and we needed a service tech to come out. That was scheduled for the next day. Wed. morning 1-23-13 “green” lights again and the service tech was there in the morning. He saw no problems with the system but went ahead and installed a new line just for the internet and a new ground wire. Guess what? 8:30pm that evening NO SERVICE AGAIN! I called the tech number and was on hold for right around an hour and then spoke with “Dennis” who sounded like he was in India. He told me to unplug the unit and plug it back in. Still had the red light and no service. He said a service tech would have to come out. Advised we already had one out that morning. Was told they would have to send someone out again. This morning, “green” lights again! Tech came out this afternoon said everything was looking good. Advised it was always around 8:30pm that is goes out. Said he will call tomorrow morning to see if it does it again tonight. If it does he will replace the unit. No complaints about the service tech. he is doing everything he can think of but uverse was a bad move on our part for sure.
bob
January 29th, 2013
1:09 am
It suprises people when they get phone, internet and tv over the same phone line, and when one is out all are out. DUH. I can’t even get DSL where I live, have satelite internet and satelite tv, both may go out in a severe storm but that is only a few minutes. They are never our any amount of time. As far as getting someone that doesn’t speak english for customer support, they do speak english they just have and Indian accent. After all why pay Americans when they can outsource to India cheaper, btw they make up American names.