AT&T cellular service network went down massively on Thursday morning reported by over 64000 users across America, leaving them unable to place calls, text or access the internet.
Although a small section of T-Mobile and Verizon customers made the same complaint of network outage too, they appeared far less widespread. T-Mobile and Verizon officials claimed that their networks were unaffected by AT&T service outages and customers who complained about outages might have been unable to reach AT&T consumers only.
Over 32000 AT&T outages were reported by customers at about 4 am ET Thursday. Number of reports dipped in the 5 am ET hour, then spiked again to more than 50000 at 7 am. According to the tracking site Downdetector, most issues were reported in Dallas, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and Atlanta. The number of reports skyrocketed to more than 71000 just before 8 am ET. A little more than 1100 T-Mobile outages and about 3000 Verizon issues were also reported at 7 am on Thursday.
AT&T officials accepted that they had a widespread outage but they were not able to provide a reason for this major 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.”
The company has been responding to customer complaints on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter), requesting them to send direct messages to customer service.
AT&T has to suffer sporadic outages over the past few days including a temporary 911 outage in various parts of Southeastern America. Although outages happen from time to time, such prolonged outages across the US are extremely rare. Even many local Governments complained that AT&T’s outages had compelled them to stop their services temporarily.
In Thursday morning, San Francisco’s Department of Emergency Management said in a statement on their ‘X’ handle that its 911 center remained operational, but many AT&T customers could not catch the emergency line because of the AT&T outage. They advised people to call from a landline or to find someone who had access to a different carrier and to ask them to call 911 on the consumer’s behalf.
“We are aware of an issue impacting AT&T wireless customers from making and receiving any phone calls (including to 911),” the department said in its post. “We are actively engaged and monitoring this.”
Similarly, Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management & Communications, Virginia’s Prince William County police department and North Carolina’s Charlotte-Mecklenburg police department have issued warnings on their respective ‘X’ handles alerting the public about the outage. They also acknowledged that some customers were briefly unable to contact 911.
The Fire Department in Upper Arlington, Ohio, said that their fire alarms also got affected due to AT&T outages. St. Joseph County, Michigan, advised its residents to use Wi-Fi to call 911 if their AT&T mobile network didn’t work while Cobb County, Georgia assured its residents that its 911 emergency line remained unaffected due to outages but their noted customers might need to find alternate methods to avail emergency services. Cabel County, West Virginia, appealed to customers that they could text 911 as a last resort if they couldn’t reach 911.
New York Police Department officials told CNN that they couldn’t make calls or use emails on AT&T phones on Thursday morning unless they were connected to Wi-Fi.
“We did not experience an outage,” T-Mobile said in a statement. “Our network is operating normally.”
“Verizon’s network is operating normally,” Verizon also had a similar statement. “Some customers experienced issues this morning when calling or texting with customers served by another carrier. We are continuing to monitor the situation.”