 Hey guys, I am Ken Ross here. I'm a business consultant that specializes in reducing costs for businesses by looking at their essential Expenses and today boy, I have a doozy today It's actually gonna be a two-part series because I have so much information to cover But let me give you the genesis of it and the genesis is Vendors do not care about you. I'm sorry. They just don't I actually had a problem where my AT&T service Experienced a very major outage and I want to get into some of the details of that But first, let me kind of give you a little background so I switched to AT&T internet had it for about two years and I really wanted to invest in Just having a very reliable connection and fiber AT&T fiber is this particular specifically what I have It's very reliable in the sense that you're using actual fiber optics, you know to your house and you have a very fast and reliable connection So with that being said, why did I experience such a catastrophic accident when it comes to my Setup, I'm gonna try to get into some of that I'm gonna do some I guess speculation because I don't have all the information When it comes to what it is that actually happened, but I will at least give you some of my Understanding in my expertise when it comes to how fiber optics work What in this particular instance? I was able to find out factually and what it is that I actually did some reconnaissance What it is. I actually did to to confirm some of those things. So let's get into it Let's talk about my setup. I have AT&T fiber Like I said and what that entails is I actually have a physical fiber optic line that is connected to my home And the way that works is AT&T takes the fiber line a Physical strand of fiber optic cable and connects it to my home that goes to a device that they control that device Takes the fiber optic signal and switches it over to something that inside the house You're able to use and that something in the house uses category 5 or category 6 Cableing and I'm sure you've seen it or familiar with category 5 cabling Category 6 or 6e is what it's like to be referred to as is the type of cable that you have Connecting to all of your devices in your home. So the way The fiber works is you get a fiber channel to your house switches to category 6 that goes to what they call a gateway and AT&T provides you with a physical piece of networking equipment that in a in some sense you manage or control right you have access to it you're able to Reset it you're able to change some of the settings. So, you know, you may not own that piece of device But in some sense you take ownership of it. It's part of your network and then from there that Gateway or that device can broadcast a wireless signal or you can roll out your own So in my particular instance what I have is I have cat 6 from, you know From the fiber to cat 6 cat 6 to the gateway and then I roll out what's called a mesh network and I have Nighthawk mesh networking There's these little devices you can put all over your house to extend your range on your on your wireless signal And it's a very reliable very fast wireless signal because of the mesh Nature of it and I'm extending what the gateway would give me because the gateway Doesn't have very good networking To be honest that that's just my opinion and in my experience the mesh network has done far better for my Household and for my area that I'm I'm using then what is out of the box that the gateway has so for anybody Who's looking for a way to enhance their wireless experience. You should really use a mesh network You should invest in a good one and maintain it make sure it's configured correctly That being said you can also still run what's called a wired network And if you have a house that's wired and you have a wired network Which you're gonna then have from the gateway is you're gonna have a switch that controls all of your connections to all your ports In your house So if you have physical networking cables in your house and each one of those jacks in your in your room Has a cable that comes from that room to a centralized place and my home actually is wired for cat 6 or cat 5 I don't I don't know exactly which one it doesn't necessarily matter The point I'm making though is is that I'm not able to leverage that network because of Where my gateway is my switch is actually closer to a garage area That I would have to put all of the networking equipment in there But my gateway is in one of my my rooms in my house the physical bedroom in one of my bedrooms in the house So I would actually have to run cabling from that room To where the switches are that would enable all the ports. I've actually instead of having that Problem and and having to solve that problem I came up with a separate solution and that solution is to roll out what we call a mocha Internet solution and that is basically you Broadcast your networking signal over your existing coax network You use the the already existing coax network that you have in your house And you hook into it and then you provide one of the mocha endpoints the internet signal And that internet signal is then shared amongst all the other signals in the house. So it is a very creative very viable solution if you don't have Physical networking in your house You don't have cat 5 cable like I have all over my house And then you don't have the problem of having to have your internet signal Being broadcast or being close to the location of where you're switching all of your internet too So with that in mind, I'd like to get into what I think actually happened The very first thing that happened to me is Sometime in the afternoon I'd say about 2 30 and the afternoon on a Thursday. I believe it was Yeah, it was Thursday. I received a text message from AT&T Hey, there's an outage in your area. We're gonna deal with it. It'll be two to three hours And so I was like great my internet's down. I'm gonna have to do something To kind of compensate for that. So I immediately brought out my my wireless phone and said I'm a set up a hot spot I'm gonna try to use my wireless hotspot feature on my phone done it before in the past Typically something that is fairly reliable if you have a good wireless connection You can connect a few devices to your phone No problem, right? And so I attempted to start to do that So I tethered a few devices to the to that one of them being my laptop computer Expecting my laptop to have an internet connection and that internet connection was not working I got no page response nothing Which raised my level of concern in the sense that I know that in order for a Wireless provider to be able to provide you internet They still have to be connected to the internet and given that AT&T is experiencing an outage This outage could extend much further than AT&T's control in the sense that this could be a major problem with the Network in this area So no sooner did I figure that out I received another text message. Hey, this is AT&T We know you have an outage in this area. It looks exactly the same as the previous message But the only difference was the time Now instead of a few hours It was somewhere in the neighborhood of 13 or 14 hours and I'll put it up on the screen so you can see it What the text messages that I actually received and that was rather shocking that I was able to receive These two text messages back-to-back so close together With these updates to know that it's going to take much longer and in the estimated amount of time for me to get service back and so with that being said I knew that Using a wireless hotspot was probably useless because not only am I experiencing this issue but potentially hundreds of other people are experiencing this issue as well as potentially a Wireless provider because wireless providers like I said they have to provide an internet connection to the internet They have a physical connection to the internet and if they're using fiber for that connection It's possible that their fiber connection is also experiencing this issue So that is where the complication lies in this particular instance is that I really do feel like what was going on at the time and I was I was Eventually confirmed of this particular issue is that there is a major outage in the fiber optic network So then let me tell you what happens next so I go through the rest of that day without internet and Not that this is a Third world problem, right? It's the first world problem most people without internet can deal and I was able to deal and my family was also able to deal but in addition to that my Entertainment, you know for most people in their house their entertainment comes from streaming services or even cable cable Television services. Well, none of these services were working because all of my Entertainment sources were streaming services. So I have streaming television I don't know if you've seen my video and I'll post the link to it actually on this side of the screen I got it right this time. No on this side screen this side screen. Yeah, it's on this side screen to my Woes with AT&T TV, which is actually a streaming service that allows you to see cable channels There are since cable network basically of streaming channels very similar to like a YouTube TV or something So I wasn't able to even access those channels because I need an internet package I need an internet service provider. So I had to make do for the day Going into the next day very much knowing that by 3 4 5 o'clock in the morning my service should be restored because hey, they gave me an estimate 12 to 13 hours 14 hours, whatever. I should have internet by the Fast forward to the next day. I go Wake up the next day. It's a Friday. I actually have to do work. I work from home Do a lot of remote work. Maybe even some zoom conferencing teleconferencing totally expecting my internet Service to be back and it wasn't Kind of speechless at this point. I don't even know how to Explain to you the feeling or the frustration right having an internet service provider tell you an estimated time Expecting those things relying on those things to actually come through and say hey look I'm giving them more than enough time. I'm gonna give them 20 hours instead of 14 hours or 15 hours to get this resolved and in ever thinking hey They're gonna actually treat me right and tell me a fair estimate Was incorrect in addition to that. I had no other information So when I woke up the next day, and I didn't have any internet. I was like confused I was like hey, well you said it would be 14 hours. What is going on? So that ultimately spawns another conversation and that conversation is with Support right I have to call AT&T now and I have to explain to them. Hey, I've been following along I've been more than patient. I haven't bugged you or annoyed you But I do want some information now because now we're at a place where you've promised The service to be restored at a particular time and that promise is unkept My first call conversation. I said I hear I was talking to them and I actually kept notes Like I said, I received a refund for one day of service Actually, I received a refund for two days of service and I'll get to that in a minute, but they Couldn't give me another explanation. They said oh it could be another 24 hours or 48 hours till this is resolved and I asked them well, what is the issue because obviously This has been an issue for some time and you guys have been trying to resolve this I'd like to have an estimate as to when I could expect my internet connection to come Back because I work from home a lot like a lot of people I also have or had at one point AT&T TV, which is now Direct TV stream, so I don't have any other source of entertainment or other avenues In addition to that I've been trying to use my phone as a as a tethering device to the internet to use my wireless internet service through my telephone and That isn't working either And we're unable to give me that support doesn't have the information They aren't able to give me everything that I need to know and be able to reliably make a decision So that was the place I was in Is they all right guys? I just wanted to show you this quick video here of why this is so complicated when you have Outages like the one that I'm experiencing right now like you're just walking along and then you see this thing here Here's a buried fiber optic line Right here If you have an outage They have to they have to go in there and they have to look for it Okay, so my creative solution was probably a creative solution that many people have in the situation that I was in And that is to go to a Starbucks. Yes. I said it Use Starbucks internet as a source of internet for the day, right? A lot of folks go there and do business So I thought hey it'd be worth a shot So I went to my local Starbucks. It's probably about two miles away from my location from my house my location where I'm using the internet and Unfortunately for me. I had the same issue that a lot of other folks were having and they had the same idea for the same solution So when I got the Starbucks there were already a couple of dozen people in the store using the internet doing their own thing I even had a conversation with someone who was having the same issue and said hey look I have AT&T fiber And I don't have internet right now and AT&T sucks and I was like well I could fully understand what you're saying because I was experiencing the same problem And I was promised 14 hours ago that I would have internet and 14 hours have passed and I still don't have internet But what I had is something they didn't have I already had a refund for two days of service And I told that person. Hey, you need to seek your refund. You need to call them and tell them This is a major impact to your service and you need you need to be compensated for that And that person followed through on that as well to get his refund for his service. So With that, I'm gonna kind of end my story right here I do have a lot more to the story that I'd love to talk to you in part 2 which I'm going to be premiering next year sometime after I get back from my vacation and Tell you kind of how all of this ended right what happened to my service. When did I ever get my service back? What else did I find and what in the world is this? That is something I'm gonna leave for part 2 would love to Have your comments in the comments section below have you ever experienced a major outage with your internet service provider and what did you do because what I did is Definitely unlike what most people did because I've actually had a chance to talk to some people And I actually went through a lot of different steps here to make sure that in the end It's a lesson learned for everyone And I have a takeaway for you in part 2 that I'd love to Bring to you on this channel. So stay tuned to this channel let other people know about what it is I'm doing out here. I want to share information I want people to understand that you don't have to take AT&T or any vendor for that matter for their word You don't have to be in a desert of no information You can be informed and you have things that you can do to Better leverage your provider and what it is that they're giving you and and give yourself a much better experience So until next time I am Ken Ross would love to see your comments in the comments section below Would love to hear from from others who have had similar issues Please put in that in the comments section below Please share with your friends and like this video and visit my website I'm Ken Ross calm until I see you next time. I'll see you around stay tuned for part 2 You're not gonna want to miss it