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News tagged: outage


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A bug in Google's Chromecast and Home devices could be overloading your WiFi networks. Users initially began complaining over at the Google support forums that connecting either a Google Chromecast or Google Home smart assistant to their home network was resulting in disconnections and other network issues. Users discovered that when these devices were connected to certain routers and waking out of sleep mode, they were sending far more MDNS multicast discovery packets than normal, overwhelming certain brands of network hardware.

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TP-Link addressed the problem in a blog post, specifically noting its impact on the company's Archer C1200 router.

"This issue stems from these devices' "Cast" feature, which sends MDNS multicast discovery packets in order to discover and keep a live connection with Google products such as Google Home," notes TP-Link. "These packets normally sent in a 20-second interval. However, we have discovered that the devices will sometimes broadcast a large amount of these packets at a very high speed in a short amount of time."

"This occurs when the device is awakened from its "sleep" state, and could exceed more than 100,000 packets," the company continues. "The longer your device is in "sleep", the larger this packet burst will be. This issue may eventually cause some of router’s primary features to shut down -- including wireless connectivity."

The bug's impact on the C1200 has been resolved, but reports suggest that the bug is impacted routers from other hardware manufacturers as well, including Asus, Linksys, Netgear, and Synology. Disconnecting your Google products from the network--or disabling cast functionality entirely seems to fix the issue, though Google says it's working on a more comprehensive solution.

"We're aware that a small number of users are having issues, and our team is working quickly to share a solution," Google says of the issue.

There's a little more detail over in the Google forums for those interested in learning more.

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Charter has sued the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 3, accusing the union's workers of repeatedly sabotaging the company's infrastructure. The lawsuit is the latest escalation of the company's standoff with its New York area union employees, who have been on strike for more than six months -- and working without a contract since 2013.

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We've repeatedly noted how consumers are increasingly subjected to annoying content blackouts every time broadcasters and cable providers fail to negotiate new contracts like grown ups. These feuds usually involve consumers losing access to content they pay for, followed by both sides using consumers as PR pinatas as they try to blame the other side for the negotiations breakdown.

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Users in our Charter Spectrum forum debate and discuss Charter's efforts to restore service in the wake of the devestation caused by Hurricane Irma. Between Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, Charter estimates that it has roughly 1.3 million subscribers still without service. Charter CEO Tom Rutledge estimated at an industry conference this week that the company expects 200,000 to 300,000 of those subscribers to "have some form of credit for some period of time."

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The FCC this week indicated that nearly 7 million cable and phone customers lost connectivity due to the impact of Hurricane Irma. According to the FCC's latest report (pdf), there were 7,184,909 subscribers out of service in the affected areas in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia.

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Nearly 190,000 phone and cable customers remain without service in the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey, according to the latest data compiled (pdf) by FCC staffers. The FCC notes that 189,487 cable and wireline subscribers across the 55 impacted counties had lost service as of Monday, up from a total of 148,565 on Sunday. The agency notes that 4.7% of the total cell sites in the impacted area remain inoperable, with 50% of downed cell sites being located in Arans and Refugio counties in Texas. Many areas remain impassible due to flooding, and Comcast issued a statement saying it was suspending operations in the region until conditions improve.

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Wireless and fixed-line ISPs are lending a hand in the wake of the devastation caused over the weekend by Hurricane Harvey. Of the 7,804 cell sites across the impacted region, 320 are out of service, or about 4% notes the FCC.

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Users in our Charter Spectrum forum indicate that the company has been struggling to sign a new carriage deal with Comcast/NBC Universal, and is informing customers that they may lose access to select content if a deal can't be struck. The deal originally expired with the end of 2016, though the two sides have extended the deadline slightly to avoid content blackouts, an increasingly growing consumer annoyance as companies bicker over the rising costs of programming.

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A major DDoS attack is causing major networking headaches this morning, impacting users of a large number of major websites including Twitter, Github, Reddit, Airbnb and Spotify. The attack appears to be focused on taking down DNS provider Dyn, and the resulting carnage is well documented by the folks over at Down Detector, which indicates that connectivity at many of the biggest ISPs has been impacted.

A statement posted to the Dyn website said the following:

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This attack is mainly impacting US East and is impacting Managed DNS customers in this region.

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Comcast says a "hardware issue" caused a significant overnight outage for the nation's broadband customers. Fortunately most users were sleeping when the outage occurred; customers on Twitter complained that service cut out around 3AM, and Down Detector indicates the outages impacted customers from Florida to California.

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T-Mobile suffered a major nationwide outage of its LTE network that drove many complaining users to social media overnight. The official T-Mobile Twitter account confirmed that users began experiencing LTE connectivity issues in many markets last night around 1:30 a.m.

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