On Thursday, a widespread cellular service outage affected many AT&T users across the United States, causing calls, text messages, and even emergency services disruptions in major cities like San Francisco.
A Widespread Cellular Outage
Around 8:15 a.m. ET (1315 GMT), over 73,000 incidents were reported, and the outage has lasted for at least five hours. AT&T appeared to have the most problems, with nearly 32,000 reports around 4:30 a.m., as per data from DownDetector, which tracks outages by gathering status reports from various sources, including user-submitted errors on its platform.
Some users also reported problems with smaller carriers like Boost Mobile, Consumer Cellular, and Straight Talk Wireless.
The issues stretched from New York, Boston, and Atlanta on the East Coast to Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, and Montreal in Canada.
Several police stations nationwide cautioned that people might be unable to call to report emergencies. However, numerous AT&T users have reported being stuck in "SOS Mode," where they can only contact emergency services.
AT&T mentioned that some customers were experiencing interruptions and were working urgently to fix the issue, advising them to use Wi-Fi calling until service is restored. Meanwhile, Verizon and T-Mobile spokespersons told The Post that their networks are functioning normally, suggesting the outage might be due to customers attempting to connect with other networks.
Government Departments' Confirmation
Posts on the X social media platform by government departments in various U.S. cities indicate that the outage has hindered people's ability to contact emergency services by dialing 911, with The Prince William County Police Department in Virginia and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department in North Carolina also sharing similar messages on the platform.
AT&T, whose shares dropped 2.4% in morning trading, is one of the top telecom companies in the U.S., with their 5G network serving 290 million customers nationwide, per the company's website.
U.S. Senator Rick Scott of Florida mentioned that he contacted AT&T to inquire about the outage, stating on X, "Florida law enforcement is doing everything it can to keep people safe, and I expect AT&T to keep us informed on what it is doing to get 911 services fully back online ASAP."
Subscribers' Expressing Frustration on Social Media
Many people online have voiced their frustrations with the cellphone companies during the ongoing outages.
One customer wrote on X that AT&T is one of the most expensive phone companies. Yet, there is been a service outage for hours with no updates given to customers, with one saying they only got one hour to fix the issue and another describing it as "crazy."
Some were concerned that the widespread outages might be due to a cyberattack, with one tech expert expressing doubt about it being incompetence or a single node failure. However, the cause of the outages is still unknown. The Post has contacted AT&T and T-Mobile for comment.
