Understanding Sun Outages A sun outage is an interruption in or distortion of satellite signals caused by interference from solar radiation. As the sun's path across the sky gets lower each day, there are times when it's in a direct line behind a communication satellite that is sending programming signals to a receiving satellite dish on Earth. The effects are seen on most channels and occur during various times of the day, lasting up to 15 minutes. You may experience short service interruptions throughout October. This includes: Sparkles in the first days of the sun outage time frame that may gradually deteriorate to the point of total outage. Blocks or freeze frames in the picture before and after peak times Note: Sun Outages don't affect Internet, Voice, or TV Everywhere services. To access your shows on TV Everywhere please visit this page.