Time Warner Cable Subscribers Suffer Huge Internet Outrage Outage

TIL the human brain automatically replaces "outage" with "outrage" when it's next to "Time Warner Cable."
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Time Warner Cable narrowly avoided bringing on the wifipocalypse this morning when Internet service to their customers went down nationwide. Somehow, the people managed to band together in the dark and make do for a few hours without the Internet, but they’re not happy about it.

The outage was reportedly caused because someone’s hand slipped and hit the “turn off the Internet” button (or something more technical that we don’t know about yet) during routine maintenance on the company’s “Internet backbone.” Service went down around 4:30AM ET and was largely restored by 6:30AM, with TWC saying, “Services were largely restored as updates continue to bring all customers back online.” I guess they finally tried turning it off and then back on again.

Whether it was just a maintenance error or some new customer service program to help cut down on those ill-advised, late night eBay purchases (you know the ones), there were apparently enough people still trying to use the Internet at that time that some #TimeWarnerCable quickly began trending on Twitter.

A lot of people are taking this as another indication of the horrors we could face if TWC’s merge with Comcast makes it through anti-trust concerns.

Here’s a view of where many of TWC’s 11.4 million subscribers were left without service:

A bit of advice about how to express your feelings to Time Warner:

This outage came at a pretty inconvenient time considering the existing feelings about the planned Comcast merger, but hey, don’t feel too bad, Time Warner. At least this new customer outrage can’t put you any lower than your last place ISP customer satisfaction rating with the American Customer Satisfaction Index. Silver lining!

(via LA Times, image via Consumerist)

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Dan Van Winkle
Dan Van Winkle (he) is an editor and manager who has been working in digital media since 2013, first at now-defunct Geekosystem (RIP), and then at The Mary Sue starting in 2014, specializing in gaming, science, and technology. Outside of his professional experience, he has been active in video game modding and development as a hobby for many years. He lives in North Carolina with Lisa Brown (his wife) and Liz Lemon (their dog), both of whom are the best, and you will regret challenging him at Smash Bros.