Last week, I was on a call with a carrier's support line trying to return my new iPhone I'd bought through its store, which meant transferring service to a backup phone. Unfortunately, I'd left that backup phone at my parents' house across town -- so when the carrier cut service and the call went dead, I had to drive half an hour to get my backup handset. 

It was the first time I'd been completely without a mobile connection since college. If I had an accident or got lost, I was on my own. Heck, I couldn't even text my dad that I was coming home. My smartphone dependency reared its head and I felt bereft and isolated without a lifeline to the world in my pocket.

On Thursday morning, tons of AT&T customers nationwide felt the exact same thing when a service outage abruptly cut them off from mobile networks. Several hours later, service was restored, the carrier explaining that the outage was due to "the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyber attack."