I used the title of the video for the post.
Considering how many unrelated networks went down simultaneously, prove to me it wasn't caused by the 2 X-Class flares that flashed right before communications went down. It might have been something else but I have yet to see a plausible explanation.
Considering how many unrelated networks went down simultaneously, prove to me it wasn't caused by the 2 X-Class flares that flashed right before communications went down. It might have been something else but I have yet to see a plausible explanation.
We don't use landlines any longer. Telco outages caused by solar flare activity involve voltages induced on electrical lines and cables. Cellular carriers use fiber which would be unaffected. The widespread nature of the outage and the lack of copper connecting the various areas means that line voltage induction is not the culprit. Also, if it was caused by the X-Class flares, we would see many other similar industries affected just the same. Sure other cellular carriers are being affected, but it important to understand that they all share infrastructure and data so a T-Mobile customer calling an AT&T customer will get the notion that T-Mobile is down when in reality it is on the other carrier's side.
There are lots of scientific tools and instruments around the world that would detect or be affected by these X-Class flares. Until I hear something about what they are experiencing in the last 24 hours, I'm putting my money on the telco outages/issues being on some DEI shitskin who misconfigured the network infrastructure at AT&T. This is a very common occurrence and we see it often in cloud infrastructure outages. It's far more likely the real cause than solar flare activity. I'll see what I can find from the scientific community impacts, if there are any.
Very good response, thanks!
Cellular carriers use fiber which would be unaffected.
Fiber has translators connected at each end. IDK how sensitive to power spikes/reflections those translators may be. Just spitballing, fiber is immune to induced voltage but the translators are high speed semiconductors that may become susceptible to flares at some level of severity of exposure.
I'll see what I can find from the scientific community impacts, if there are any.
I will be very curious to hear what you find.
Fiber has translators connected at each end. IDK how sensitive to power spikes/reflections those translators may be. Just spitballing, fiber is immune to induced voltage but the translators are high speed semiconductors that may become susceptible to flares at some level of severity of exposure.
While there are many devices in the fiber run such as these translators, repeaters, signal conditioners, media converters, etc., I think that these devices would largely be unaffected by solar flares due to them being built to reject all manner of electrical noise and interference as well as being well grounded and shielded. These devices need to comply with the telco and electronics industry regulations for their electrical characteristics and therefore are hardened against such exposure. It would take a flare of considerable magnitude to affect them but lots of consumer-level tech would get disrupted long before these devices do. Since we're not hearing reports of people's cell phones, routers, TVs or computers being knocked out, I think that also adds to the idea that the flares didn't harm anything on Earth. Thanks magnetosphere!
I'll see what I can find from the scientific community impacts, if there are any.
I will be very curious to hear what you find.
I'm curious too, but it may be a good while before we hear from the scientific community since they are slow to release any information and often don't report anything at all due to the nature of their work or their desire to understand the impact fully before going public. We'll probably get confirmation about the outage's cause being more mundane long before we will hear of any scientific impacts. But I'll keep my ears open on this.
(post is archived)