Planned maintenance

Posted Sep 19, 1:45 PM

We will be performing maintenance on our infrastructure to improve security and reliability. This maintenance directly addreses the issues we encountered on September 15th.

Sunday, Sep 20 between 5:00 AM and 6:00 AM, internet service will be intermittent while we perform the maintenance.

We ask that you leave your router plugged in during the entire maintenance window.
Do not attempt to reboot your router.

If you need internet service during that period, message us and we will find a solution.

If your internet service is still not working after 6:00 AM, please message us at (520) 333-7507 or email us at [email protected] and we will help you promptly.

Thank you for your patience!

-- Alex
Free Range Internet

September 15 outages

Posted Sep 15, 2026, 7:15 PM

We had three outages today. Here’s what happened and what we’re doing to improve reliability.

Around 5:50 AM, service went down for five minutes when I slipped and accidentally cut power to our main router during maintenance.

A heavy hailstorm in Gila Bend caused two more outages this evening: approximately 5:53–5:56 PM and 6:15–6:31 PM.

The second lasted longer because the storm triggered a software bug that directed internet traffic to the wrong connection.

We know the repeated outages this summer have been frustrating. Even a brief interruption can disrupt work, a call, or your evening plans.

Most have been weather-related, and we’re working hard to make the network better able to handle those conditions. Improvements that have been planned for so far:

This month:

• Fix software bugs to keep one connection failure from causing wider outages.
• Introduce software that switches traffic to working connections more effectively.
• Add satellite backup to provide basic internet access for all customers when our main connections are down.

October 2026:

• Introduce software to automatically let you know when we are having an outage, with a cause and estimated time.

December 2026:

• Upgrade existing connections in Gila Bend to better withstand disruptions (our service in Ajo piggybacks off Gila Bend).

March 2027:

• Add a third, independent connection between Gila Bend and Ajo using wireless frequencies less affected by weather.

Our focus is fewer interruptions and faster recovery when problems do occur. Thank you for sticking with us as we make these improvements!

Alex
Free Range Internet

Partial systems outage

Posted Aug 16, 2026, 18:04 PM

Due to the A/C failure on Thursday, our website, payment system/customer portal and text messaging system has been down since Thursday afternoon.

We are progressively restoring systems. An update will be posted here when everything is working again.

Internet service is not affected

EDIT Monday, Aug 17th 6:45 PM
We are now receiving text messages. Please allow us a day to respond to your messages.

-- Alex
Free Range Internet

Second outage

Posted Aug 13, 2026, 16:04 PM

We are having another outage due to extreme weather in Gila Bend, but the weather also took out the electrical grid at 3:45pm so most customers won't be affected.

EDIT: the second outage latest 6mn30s, from 3:58pm until 4:05pm

Outage update

Posted Aug 13, 2026, 12:56 PM

We are back online at the moment. The service may be intermittent through the afternoon.

Backup update

Posted Aug 13, 2026, 12:08 PM

All work-from-home customers and businesses have been connected to the backup system as of 11:08am.

ETA Update

Posted Aug 13, 2026, 11:16 AM

The ETA window has been updated to 4pm-10pm

General outage

Posted Aug 13, 2026, 10:44 AM

All our services are currently offline.

We estimate they will be working again between 11am and 8pm 4pm and 10pm.

To provide internet in Ajo, we connect to wholesale internet providers at a datacenter facility in Phoenix. Currently, this facility has no air conditioning because of storms last night. Because of that, both of the providers we buy internet from have gone offline (their equipment has overheated).

See the datacenter facility status page: https://status.phoenixnap.com/

If you work from home, please text us the name of your company at (520) 333-7507 and we might be able to get you connected to our very limited backup system.

We are very very sorry for the incovenience and we will try to let you know as soon as we have an update.

Thank you

-- Alex
Free Range Internet

Air conditioning failure at our carrier facility in Phoenix

Posted Aug 13, 2026, 4:38 AM

To provide internet service, we have built a network that connects Ajo to Phoenix, where we buy internet on the wholesale market at a Datacenter.

The facility is currently experiencing an air conditioning failure, which may cause a general outage on our network if it is not resolved.

This is an very rare type of incident that we have not planned for, and we do not have any workarounds should the situation stay unresolved.

See their status page: https://status.phoenixnap.com/

-- Alex
Free Range Internet

Maintenance complete

Posted June 13, 2026, 2:00 AM

The maintenance went smoothly and all customers should be back online. The temporary router on A Mountain has been replaced with the proper equipment.

If you're still offline, please don't restart or reset your router. Let us know by text message at (520) 333-7507 or by email at [email protected] and we'll get you taken care of.

Thank you for your patience.

-- Alex
Free Range Internet

Planned maintenance tonight at 1:00 AM

Posted June 12, 2026, 8:25 PM

Tonight we're replacing the temporary router on A Mountain with the proper equipment, so it can run on our battery backup system like the rest of our network.

There will be a short, 5-minute outage tonight at 1:00 AM while we make the swap. This is earlier than the 3:00 AM time we originally planned.

Please don't restart or reset your router during or after the maintenance. It won't help and it can cause problems. If you're still offline after 1:15 AM, please let us know by text message at (520) 333-7507 or by email at [email protected]

For more information, read the outage update below from Thursday morning.

-- Alex
Free Range Internet

Update on the June 11 outage

Posted June 11, 2026, 2:29 AM

Early Thursday morning, June 11, internet service went down for all of our customers in Ajo and Why. The outage began at 12:20 AM, and service was back up at 1:36 AM.

The outage lasted 1 hour 16 minutes.

What happened

Overnight, we were doing routine maintenance to make room for new customers on our network. During that work, our main router for Ajo locked up and stopped responding. The only fix was to replace it. Since that router sits on top of A Mountain, it took us some time to get up there, prepare a spare router, and swap it out.

Why did the router lock up? At this time we still don't know the exact cause.

What happens next

The replacement router is a temporary fix. Unlike the rest of our equipment, it can't run on our battery backup system, only on normal power. That means if our site on the mountain were to lose electricity for any reason, your internet would go down with it. We'll be replacing it with the proper equipment so that doesn't happen.

There will be a short, 5-minute outage on Saturday at 3:00am while we replace the router.

Beyond that, we're in the middle of a larger effort to add backup equipment throughout our network, so that no single piece of hardware failing can take everyone offline again.

We're sorry for the interruption, and we thank you for your support.

-- Alex
Free Range Internet