Sun outages occur twice a year during the spring and fall when the sun falls directly behind a communication satellite trying to transmit a signal. The sun emits solar radiation and temporarily overwhelms the satellite signal to Earth, causing interferences across television channels.
During these interferences, customers may experience distortions in picture and audio quality, such as pixelated video or picture and sound freezes. These interferences can last several minutes and only occur during daylight hours as the sun moves across the sky. Internet and phone services are not affected by these outages.