On Monday, October 8th, both large and small wireless providers across the country experienced a disruption in text (SMS) and picture (MMS) messaging transmission between carrier systems.  It took over 40-hours to ascertain what caused the issue and to correct the problem.  The outage was caused by a data center in Plano, Texas that experienced a disruption in power supply from the local utility.  This center serves as a hub for SMS and MMS traffic nationally.

Brian Woody, Union Telephone’s Chief Customer Relations Officer, noted that “many customers of Union Wireless were unfortunately impacted by the SMS and MMS service disruption.  In today’s fast-paced world, people are increasingly relying more on text and picture messaging to stay connected for business and personal issues.  More text messages are sent now than calls for the average user.  Even though the disruption in service was not caused by or the fault of Union Wireless, we will be providing a credit of $5 for every customer that currently has an unlimited text and picture messaging plan on Union’s system.”

The five-dollar credit will be applied during the October 2012 billing period.  Unlike some providers, Union Wireless only offers unlimited text and picture messaging plans for its customer base.

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