Localize the 15 October connectivity disruption below the state level

Determine whether the externally observed 15 October connectivity excursion was confined to the six North Carolina counties identified by DIRS or also affected the three neighboring counties that showed no corresponding cell-site increase.

Background

IODA independently corroborates a North Carolina connectivity decline during the 15 October event and shows no comparable event in Tennessee, but IODA does not publish county-level time series for the relevant counties.

Consequently, the external measurement confirms the timing and state-level direction of the disruption but cannot distinguish the six affected counties from the three unaffected counties. The authors identify county- or ASN-resolution probing data as necessary to test the county-level pattern directly.

References

It cannot distinguish the six affected counties from the three unaffected ones.

— The Towers Were Standing: A Cause Decomposition of Cellular Outages During Hurricane Helene  (2609.10944 - Olukola et al., 10 Sep 2026) in Section 5.4, subsection “Limits of the corroboration”; Section 7.3, “Future work”