Around 3:30am ET Thursday morning, thousands of AT&T wireless customers across the country found themselves without service thanks to an unexpected AT&T outage. By 9am ET, the number of reported outages spiked to over 71,000. The cell phone world was in a frenzy. Many people could not even connect with 911.
AT&T Outage
Today’s AT&T outage has caused chaos across the United States. While outages are being reported to mostly affect Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Chicago, Indianapolis, New York, Miami and Charlotte, there are some in our area who are also without service.
“Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning,” AT&T told NPR, “We are working urgently to restore service to them. We encourage the use of Wi-Fi calling until service is restored.”
Additionally, according to DownDectector, there also have been about 1,000 outages reported by both Verizon and T-Mobile customers.
However, both companies deny this. “We did not experience an outage,” T-Mobile said in a statement. “Our network is operating normally.”
Verizon echoed the sentiments, saying it was also unaffected by AT&T’s outage.
“Verizon’s network is operating normally,” Verizon told CNN in a statement. “Some customers experienced issues this morning when calling or texting with customers served by another carrier. We are continuing to monitor the situation.”
Concern grew as many people realized they could not access emergency services.
San Francisco’s Department of Emergency Management said in a statement on X Thursday morning that its 911 center remained operational.
Important to note, for the many AT&T customers who are unable to reach the emergency line because of the outage, they should call from a landline or find someone with working service.
What Happens Next?
While frustrations grow, AT&T customers will have to wait for the outages to be restored. DownDetector shows in real-time the status of reported outages in your area.
AT&T acknowledged that it has a widespread outage but did not provide a reason for the system failure.
“Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. We are working urgently to restore service to them,” AT&T said in a statement. “We encourage the use of Wi-Fi calling until service is restored.”