UPDATED 2:37 P.M.
(Reuters) – AT&T said it had restored wireless service for all affected customers, several hours after a cellular phone outage on Thursday disrupted calls and text messages for thousands of U.S. users, prompting an investigation by federal agencies.
The wireless carrier, whose 5G network covers around 290 million people across the United States, has been grappling with interruptions to its service for more than 10 hours.
“We are taking steps to ensure our customers do not experience this again in the future,” AT&T said in a statement on its website.
The Federal Communications Commission said it was investigating the incident, while the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said it was working with AT&T to understand the cause.
White House spokesman John Kirby said the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were looking into the AT&T outage. CISA is a unit of DHS.
“We are being told AT&T has no reason to think this was a cyber or security incident,” said Kirby, adding that the FCC was in touch with the company.
“But the bottom line is we don’t have all the answers,” he said about the cause of the outage.
AT&T declined to comment on the FCC’s investigation into the incident.
The company did not provide a reason for the outage or the number of affected users.
AT&T shares were down 2.4% in afternoon trading. There were about 3,255 incidents of outages reported around 2:47 p.m. ET (1947 GMT), according to tracking website Downdetector.com, down from more than 70,000 earlier in the day.
Doug Madory, the director of internet analysis firm Kentik, said it was unclear from the outside what exactly had happened at AT&T, although he said he doubted it was the result of malicious activity.
“I’m skeptical this was some kind of an attack,” he said in a telephone interview. “Most of these things end up being some kind of a software push that got screwed up somehow.”
The outage affected people’s ability to reach emergency services by dialing 911, according to posts on the X social media platform by government departments in several U.S. cities.
“We are aware of an issue impacting AT&T wireless customers from making and receiving any phone calls (including to 911), the San Francisco Fire Department said on X.
The Prince William County Police Department in Virginia and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department in North Carolina posted similar statements on the platform.
Users of Verizon, T-Mobile and UScellular also faced disruptions, but they were more limited than the AT&T reports, Downdetector showed.
The other companies said their network was operating normally and the outage was potentially related to customers trying to connect with other networks.
U.S. Senator Rick Scott of Florida said in a post on X that he had contacted AT&T for an update.
“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,” he said.
In 2021, regulators settled for $19.5 million a probe into a T-Mobile outage during the pandemic that lasted over 12 hours and led to more than 20,000 failed 911 emergency calls.
(Reporting by Aditya Soni and Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru, David Shepardson, Raphael Satter and Kanishka Singh in Washington; Additional reporting by Nilutpal Timsina, Arsheeya Bajwa and Priyanka G; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, Anil D’Silva, Arun Koyyur, Jonathan Oatis and Alexander Smith)
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(Reuters) -AT&T said three-quarters of its network has been restored after a cellular phone outage on Thursday hit thousands of users in the U.S., disrupting calls and text messages as well as emergency services in major cities.
The wireless carrier, whose 5G network covers around 290 million people across the country, has been grappling with interruptions to its service for more than eight hours.
“We are working as quickly as possible to restore service to remaining customers,” AT&T said on its website. It did not provide a reason for the outage or the number of affected users.
The company’s shares were down 2.3% in late morning trading, with nearly 60,000 incidents of outages reported around 11:15 a.m. ET (1615 GMT), according to tracking website Downdetector.com.
The outage has affected people’s ability to reach emergency services by dialing 911, according to posts on the X social media platform by government departments in several U.S. cities.
“We are aware of an issue impacting AT&T wireless customers from making and receiving any phone calls (including to 911), the San Francisco Fire Department said on X.
The Prince William County Police Department in Virginia and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department in North Carolina posted similar statements on the platform.
Downdetector showed users of Verizon, T-Mobile and UScellular also faced disruptions.
But the companies said their network was operating normally and the outage was potentially related to customers trying to connect with other networks.
U.S. Senator Rick Scott of Florida said he had reached out to AT&T to get an update on the outage.
“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,” he said in a post on X.
The Federal Communications Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it was investigating the outage.
In 2021, the regulatory agency settled a probe into a T-Mobile outage during the pandemic that lasted over 12 hours and led to more than 20,000 failed 911 emergency calls for $19.5 million.
(Reporting by Aditya Soni and Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru and David Shepardson in Washington; additional reporting by Nilutpal Timsina, Arsheeya Bajwa and Priyanka G; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, Anil D’Silva, Arun Koyyur and Jonathan Oatis)
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UPDATED 7:47 A.M.
(Reuters) -A cellular outage on Thursday hit thousands of AT&T users in the United States, disrupting calls and text messages as well as emergency services in major cities including San Francisco.
More than 73,000 incidents were reported around 8:15 a.m. ET, according to data from outage tracking website Downdetector.com.
AT&T said some of its customers were facing interruptions and it was “working urgently” to restore service. “We encourage the use of Wi-Fi calling until service is restored,” it said.
The AT&T outage has impacted people’s ability to reach emergency services by dialing 911, a post on social media platform X from the San Francisco Fire Department said.
“We are aware of an issue impacting AT&T wireless customers from making and receiving any phone calls (including to 911),” the fire department said on the platform.
Downdetector showed users of Verizon, T-Mobile and UScellular also faced disruptions.
But T-Mobile and Verizon said their network was operating normally and the outage was potentially related to customers trying to connect other networks.
(Reporting by Nilutpal Timsina, Harshita Mary Varghese and Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, Anil D’Silva and Arun Koyyur)
UPDATED: 7:08 A.M.
(Reuters) -A cellular outage early on Thursday hit thousands of AT&T users in the United States, disrupting calls and text messages as well as emergency services in major cities including San Francisco.
More than 50,000 incidents were reported around 7:00 a.m. ET, according to data from outage tracking website Downdetector.com.
Users of Verizon, T-Mobile and UScellular also reported disruptions, according to Downdetector.
T-Mobile said it did not experience an outage and that its network was operating normally.
“Downdetector is likely reflecting challenges our customers were having attempting to connect to users on other networks,” the company said in an e-mailed statement.
AT&T did not immediately respond to multiple requests seeking comment on the outage.
The outage was impacting people’s ability to reach emergency services by dialing 911, a post on social media platform X from the San Francisco Fire Department said.
“We are aware of an issue impacting AT&T wireless customers from making and receiving any phone calls (including to 911),” the fire department said on the platform.
(Reporting by Nilutpal Timsina, Harshita Mary Varghese and Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, Arun Koyyur and Anil D’Silva)
(Reuters) -Large swathes of the U.S. were hit by a cellular outage early on Thursday, with thousands of users reporting disruptions with the services offered by telecom firms including AT&T.
More than 32,000 outage incidents were reported with AT&T’s service around 4:30 a.m. ET, according to data from outage tracking website Downdetector.com. Impacted cities included San Francisco, Houston and Chicago, the website showed.
Users of Verizon, T-Mobile and UScellular also reported issues with the telecom firms’ services, according to Downdetector.
The companies did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment on the reason behind the outages.
A post on social media platform X from the San Francisco Fire Department said the outage was impacting people’s ability to reach emergency services by dialing 911.
“We are aware of an issue impacting AT&T wireless customers from making and receiving any phone calls (including to 911),” the fire department said on the platform formerly known as Twitter, adding that it was “actively engaged and monitoring this.”
(Reporting by Nilutpal Timsina and Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza, Varun H K and Shounak Dasgupta)
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