Why You Should Absolutely Share Your Cellcom Outage Experience With The FCC
The Federal Communications Commission or the FCC is inviting Cellcom customers to share their experiences regarding the outage that lasted almost two weeks earlier this year (story HERE).
Many of you already know how I feel about this. I believe the Cellcom outage is the biggest consumer injustice that Northeast Wisconsin has seen for some time. The agony of families who couldn’t get a hold of their children or elderly parents. The suffering of small businesses who lost revenue because of the outage, putting life dreams in jeopardy.
And it wasn’t just the actual outage. Cellcom went for days without communicating with us, and their bill “adjustment” is nowhere near the scale of damage the outage did to this community. Cellcom simps, who have always cared more about being right than understanding the suffering of their neighbors, will continue to invent excuses. They also suffer from amnesia, forgetting Cellcom hasn’t always been the best community partner, asking for its donation to a Bay Beach project back not even a year ago (story HERE).
Share your experience with the FCC. Be truthful. Be thorough. And explain how the outage hurt you. It likely won’t make you whole, but it will finally give you the audience you deserve after what Cellcom did to you.
You can read the correspondence below.
PUBLIC SAFTY AND HOMELAND SECURITY BUREAU SEEKS INFORMATION ON EFFECTS OF May 2025 CELLCOM OUTAGE ON CONSUMERS, PUBLIC SAFETY ENTITIES, and GOVERNMENT ENTITIES
PS Docket No. 25-218
Comment Date: August 25, 2025
On May 14, 2025, Nsight Telservices and New-Cell, Inc. dba Cellcom (collectively, Cellcom) suffered a substantial multi-day outage that prevented customers from making calls, receiving calls, and sending text messages over Cellcom’s network. According to media reports, the outage also affected 911 calling for Cellcom customers. Cellcom explained in a public statement that this outage was caused by “a cyber incident.” Cellcom has stated that texting and Cellcom-to-Cellcom voice service was restored on May 19, and that it restored remaining services for most customers by May 27.
To permit a thorough and accurate investigation and analysis of this outage, the Bureau has opened a docket and invites interested parties to provide all relevant information concerning the causes, effects, and implications of this outage.
We seek comment from the public on the outage’s impact on individual and enterprise consumers. Were consumers of Cellcom’s network able to successfully make or receive all calls, some calls, or no calls at all? Were consumers of other communications service providers able to successfully complete calls to consumers of Cellcom’s network? Were consumers’ text messages successfully sent or received? Did consumers on Cellcom’s network experience a disruption of data services? Were consumers able to use alternative measures, such as FaceTime, iMessage, WhatsApp, Signal, or others to connect during the outage, and were those methods of communication successful and effective? We ask that commenters be specific about the time period that their responses address.
The Bureau also seeks information about Cellcom’s handling of the outage and the outage’s impact.
How did consumers learn about the outage? Was Cellcom’s communication about the outage appropriate, timely, and effective? What effect did the outage have on businesses and providers of critical services, such as hospitals? What effect did the outage have on consumers’ ability to contact emergency services, ability to contact family members, and personal activities?
We also seek comment on the effect of these outages on public safety agencies, first responders, and state and local governments. Are there estimates of how many calls, including 911 calls, failed or were otherwise affected by the outage? What was the effect of the outage on public safety activities and government services? Was there a disruption of data services relied on by public safety entities and state and local governments?
We further seek comment on the outage as it relates to Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs). Did PSAPs receive calls originated on Cellcom’s network during this outage? If so, were those calls accompanied by Automatic Number Identification (ANI) and Automatic Location Identification (ALI) information? For those PSAPs that are capable of receiving text messages sent to 911, did the outage disrupt the receipt of those text messages or the sending of texts in reply? Did Cellcom provide timely, actionable notification about the outage? If not, how did PSAPs learn of the outage? If timely, actionable information about this outage was not received, what effect did this have on the availability of 911 call-handling resources to the public? What measures, if any, did PSAPs take to maintain the public’s continuity of access to emergency services? How effective were these measures?
Interested parties may submit comments by following the filing instructions below. Commenters may also send a description of their experience to CellcomOutage2025@fcc.gov.