Verizon Internet outage actually affected 22,000 customers in Maryland, PLUS 22,000 Baltimore city employees
Verizon today revised upward the number affected by an Internet outage early this week to 22,000 customers, including residential, commercial and government, according to a company spokeswoman.
Yesterday, Verizon gave me an initial report that around 5,000 customers had been affected from Sunday to Monday, from the Baltimore metro area to parts of Montgomery County. The cause: a faulty router.
I had wondered aloud on Twitter if that 5,000 number sounded right. Not to toot my horn here, but if not for my questioning, the public would not have a sense of the scope of Verizon's Internet outage. It should not have to be this way.
Should Internet outage reporting by Internet providers in Maryland be more transparent? Should Internet providers give customers -- and the media -- the scope of an outage, so consumers, business and government clients can be informed? So much of our economy and daily living now runs directly through the Internet.
This morning, Sandra Arnette, a Verizon spokeswoman, emailed me the revised number when I asked about outages for Baltimore City employees. Rico Singleton, Baltimore Chief Information Officer, said in a Facebook comment at the Baltimore Tech Page that 22,000 Baltimore city government customers were affected, and the city had to work with Verizon to design workarounds for the network. Those city customers were city employees.
Slightly confusing: Arnette told me that 22,000 was the total outage number for the region, not just for one city agency. But Singleton told me in a follow-up exchange, that, yes indeed, 22,000 city employees' email accounts were affected by the Verizon Internet outage.
Comments
Our router at home stopped working sometime on Sunday and was still out on Monday morning. I had an online chat with a Verizon rep (in India, I think), who asked me to call tech support. He apparently had no idea that the problem was a local Verizon outage.
Posted by: Annie | November 9, 2011 12:01 PM
My Verizon DSL home connection dropped Sunday night. It was back up on Monday but dropped again Tuesday night. I haven't tried to connect today. City resident, not employee.
Posted by: BC | November 9, 2011 12:03 PM
Not slightly confusing. It would seem to be pretty clear that you have not gotten the full story from Verizon. Inefficient beauracracy or corporate posturing (cover up?).
Posted by: Mosheh | November 9, 2011 2:19 PM
Well what about today's AT&T outage? There's no information anywhere on that!
Posted by: Kerry Plancon | November 9, 2011 2:47 PM
Don't even think about switching to Comcast. They are much worse!
Posted by: Bob | November 9, 2011 3:43 PM
I woke up to an outage this morning on DSL in Loudoun County VA. Nothing the tech did on the line worked so it went to the Tech support. I received an automated call saying there is a widespread issue they are working on. 4PM and still no connection. I work from home and had to use dial-up! Guess I have to head into the office tomorrow...
Posted by: frank | November 9, 2011 4:18 PM
Verizon customer located in Hershey PA This morning 11/10/11 can get to google, msn, weather at noah.gov, this site, Washington Post and very few others but most of the internet is either down or unreachable from this location - no facebook , twitter, microsoft.com, godaddy.com, cnn, msnbc, fox, etc. etc. etc. Searches for "internet outage" return no current result.
Posted by: E Leo | November 10, 2011 7:24 AM
BTW - Verizon outage and spotty service continues in Waldorf, MD. This is ongoing since Monday last week. Any news is appreciated.
Posted by: dave rose | November 21, 2011 11:27 AM