This is the very first post I made on GAW almost 2 years ago. Given today's cell phone outages, the following can again shed light on WHY I believe these outages are occurring.
I work as a telecom engineer troubleshooting/programming the Ciena 5164 optical router used for Verizon and At&t. These companies and many of my colleagues know exactly what it was but the more interesting part that raised some eyebrows was the fact that cc payment processing and emergency services/SOS/911 calls WERE possible for most of the affected customers. This is key. (This all runs on the same fiber optic network and should have been ‘down’ also.)
NOTE: If your phone signal meter says SOS, you CAN call 911.
I cannot overstate how anomalous the above fact pattern is because when our networks go down, they don’t go down in this piecemeal way.
Here’s the takeaway:
The goal of a ‘cyber weapon’ is maximum disruption.
But (IMO) this in NOT a weapon but a cyber tool.
Whoever deployed (tested) this ‘cyber tool’ went to great lengths to pause specific categories of communication ONLY.
This surgeon scalpel approach we saw was a MUCH more difficult task than to just ‘nuke’ the whole system so to speak. A tool like this would need to be tested a few times to ensure a reliable partitioning of the ‘Target’ [calls/data] and the ‘Not Target’ [911/cc processing].
All of these phone/data/911 services run on the exact same network. There is no secret back up or auxiliary.
The network is quasi redundant but the very nature of how it's laid out (to a degree) because if one node goes down, data can be routed around that node, etc.
To be clear:
When new, normal configs are put into an optical router and everything seems to be done properly, a period of several minutes to a few hours may be necessary to make sure the node is operating properly.
The point I'm trying to drive home here is at these systems can be EXTREMELY FINICKY when you make changes.
There are hundreds of thousands of 12+ year old fiber optic routers running right now in the USA handling a mind-boggling amount of cellular data/traffic that.
IF one where to be brought off-line for just a few minutes by a tech and then we tried to bring the router back up and put cellular/data traffic on that router again, it's not unusual for it too require 30+ minutes or more of troubleshooting bs to get the router to come back up and do what it had just been doing, uninterrupted, for the last decade until just a few mins prior.
That's the specific nature of the fickleness of these machines.
IF it works fine for a day, it should work flawlessly for a decade… BUT a hypothetical cyber tool such as this MUST be tested before you can know for sure that the network is going to behave as (WH) intend it to.
BUT WHY?
Enemy sleeper cells need reliable Comms for max effectiveness.
Q2056: "It must be hard to communicate."
u/#q2056
WWG1WGA!
Awesome post. That’s why I keep coming back to this board.
I remember this post from two years ago. thanks for reminding me
WWG1WGA fren!
Great explanation. Thank you. So is it your opinion these things are being tested in order to shut down isolated systems maybe covering a geoghraphic area? Perhaps where a major incident or protest is going on? Or to interrupt specific communications that wh know are happening within and between different politcal networks? Such as protesters and their handlers?
I know exactly what you're referencing because my husband used to do this and more...thanks John!
Yes I remember you told me.
Two years goes by quick. I'll be heading back to the future before this year is over. Kek
😸
DOGE types?
Who knows ip protocol, the layers upon layers, to target packets with particular characteristics so they go or don't go where they are going?
Not me.
Wizards and Warlocks.
They're going to need to bring down communications for/during a major event.
But in doing so, they must ensure 911 services and credit card processing works. Otherwise there would be chaos.
Enemy sleeper cells need reliable Comms for max effectiveness.
Q2056: "It must be hard to communicate."
u/#q2056
3 networks, one for each intel agency.
Note that it is suspected that MI-6 took control of Verizon and all of their networks just prior to 2008 elections. They are based/HQ in NYC because it appears to be a London-controlled city-state (Manhattan). This event (14JAN26) likely removed MI-6 access intentionally to put them in the dark for an upcoming event.
T-mobile was controlled by Mossad (since ~1989) and flipped last year (2025), now allied with and coupled to StarLink. AT&T was placed under full control by CIA during or shortly after JFK admin (est. 1961 prior to Cuban activities), and freed (for second time) sometime during first Trump admin.
AT&T suspected flip date was 17MAY2021 (but likely pre-arranged by Trump admin in 2018):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_Time_Warner_by_AT%26T
Technology "scalpel" used has similar signature as "cybertool" used to turn off Venezuela's power prior to that operation, indicating it was American Republic military that did both.
Don't forget what happened Christmas 2020 too, ATT targeted in a bombing but the bomber apparently didnt want to hurt anyone... https://greatawakening.win/p/17t1RQAgaa/part1-how-quickly-we-forget-do/c/
YES!!
Please make a post about the 3 networks & Intel Agencies! This is DASTING!
not me either
This specific optical router? What interface do you use and is it similar to Cisco's IOS?
The data center must be very hot or you got a lot of cooling elements going around to keep it cool and well ventilated?
How many RUs? I'm thinking about a million RUs across a couple thousand of racks, seeing how it's for Verizon and AT&T?
Sorry for the questions but I studied networking and system admin and I wanted to work in either corporate or data center but I never got the opportunity to, and I've never stepped into an actual server room, other than the mini server room in my help lab at college.
I would understand if you are under NDA or anything that prevents you from sharing company info and I respect that if you can't divulge any info. Was just wondering and curious.
Other than that, terrific run-down on what's going on at a data center and how data are being carried over. Yeah it makes sense what could be going on. I'm on Google Fi so I don't know what the outage was about until just now with your post among others.
Data centers are quite cold. Multiple large cooling systems from the likes of Vertiv. It's cold enough that if you are not used to it you want to wear a jacket. The humidity is also controlled because static electricity can do terrible damage. The facilities (behind the scenes) stuff of battery banks, generators, UPSs, HVAC, etc. is more impressive than the server, network, and telco racks.
I am on Verizon and was in SOS mode today. Given my years of experience in networking it definitely had me wondering. I haven't done carrier networking though. Cisco I know for sure. Duh. But, I've never heard of Ciena.
Yeah and I use Putty. The 5164 only takes up one RU. Other common routers are Cisco and Nokia. I don't work on those.
They have powerful, loud, annoying fans built into them for cooling. The rooms they are in are also redundantly cooled.
Old telecom guy here. Thanks for the post. Yea, people have no clue regarding the sophistication levels of comms being used... nor the many vulnerabilities that exist in them. The early term for these technologies was "Intelligent Networks" and birthed during the predecessor of TCP/IP (internet)... X.25. Remember that? That was in the early 1980s.
The software overlays were being designed to exploit these infrastructures (especially in wireless) from that 1980s beginning. The stealth software folder by now (2026) must be massively sophisticated... and thus, has to be tested.
Indeed! Isolated outages (on demand) could be an awsome tool... when used ethically.
To change the subject. But do any of you know anything about the Apps that utlize 5G+ spectrums? I have heard about a few exploiting the human's limited frequency bands of the brain and heart frequencies. If so, post them and start a thread... sounds worthy for discussion?
Well, Schwab has promised a "cyber pandemic".
I worked as subcontractor for Fujitsu from 97 to 2002 upgrading multiplex software in colocations / nodes / etc.. 9/11 pretty much ended that job..
Since joining this community I have been interested in these outages and how they are being presented,,, VERY STRANGE..
I’m definitely not a telecom engineer, hell, I don’t even consider myself a techie, but I can say from what I learned while being in the industry, these outages make ZERO SENSE, as they’re being presented.
I haven’t looked into this in a while, but when I did it seemed apparent that these outages were inside jobs that seemed to have been cleared to happen and not from an outside attack or from failed equipment / software / what have you. Things definitely have changed since I worked in telecom, but I can’t imagine they’ve changed to such a degree where outages happen in the manner they are being presented here.
*This Has White Hats Written ALL OVER IT!
**The question we should be asking is “why are WHs doing this”? Is it to bring something new online? Is it to run takedown ops?? Are they testing something new??? Or,,,,, is it just a ploy to raise eyebrows, add weirdness to an already VERY WEIRD ENVIRONMENT????🤷♂️
Also, I’m interested if anyone here has any thoughts on Verizon having been quietly punished by a court decision for past fuckery?
My Verizon coverage went to shit and I looked into why this happened. From what I gathered Verizon, at some point, skipped buying spectrum at a point in time when that seemed to make zero sense. Due to this they lost some of their coverage advantage and I speculate that this “could” have been the result of a court decision / punishment .?. Does anyone here know anything about this???
This doesnt track with what actually happened, though. Seems to have been software malfunctions rather than hardware malfunctions. I use Verizon, and im in an area that "went down", yet i was connected and able to place calls all day, while someone next to me also on verizon could not.
How can you acknowledge the fickleness of the network without acknowledging the same thing about the programming? Humans are stupid and make mistakes, and this was clearly programming error, not hardware error.
I deal with mass notifications, including sms and phone calling from all carriers. We use twilio, bandwidth, and telynx to send sms and phone calls. Telnyx was the only one that stopped sending to verizon during the outage, but the other two worked... only reason for that is buggy software. They all hit the same api endpoints at these carriers, yet all behaved differently during the incident.
I'm not saying it's a hardware problem at all.
It's definitely in the software.
The question is: was it an accident, on purpose by bad guys, or on purpose by good guys?
I'm firmly in the camp of the latter.
This is mostly unrelated, but since you're a fiber tech I thought I'd ask. I recently switched to Xfinity fiber service, 300mps, about 6 weeks ago. I have noticed that frequently if I'm watching something live on Rumble the audio will cut out and I have to rewind or ff on my remote and then audio works again. And I had something similar happen on an X spaces a couple nights ago. Is there any fix for that you might know of?