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Key Takeaways
- An AT&T outage affected thousands of users on Thursday, including emergency services in major cities.
- AT&T was able to restore services by 2:10 p.m. Central Time, but over 74,000 reports of outages detected early in the day by a tracking service.
- Rivals T-Mobile and Verizon said they their networks did not suffer an outage, though users may have faced some issues getting in touch with people who used another carrier.
- AT&T’s cellular network problems also hampered emergency service calls across the country.
A widespread AT&T Inc. (T) outage starting early Thursday affected thousands of cell phone customers, sending shares lower.
The service was restored at 2:10 p.m. Central Time and by late evening the company said the outage was likely caused by the “the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyber attack.”
Outage tracker DownDetector reported that AT&T had experienced nearly 74,000 incidents by 9:30 a.m. ET.
While DownDetector also saw service issue reports spike for rivals T-Mobile US Inc., (TMUS), and Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ), both companies said their networks did not suffer any outage.
T-Mobile said its network was “operating normally,” adding that the issues reported on DownDetector were “likely reflecting challenges our customers were having attempting to connect to users on other networks.” Verizon reported that its network remained “fully operational” with a similar reason for a potential service issue when their customers tried calling or texting those who used another carrier.
The outage also blocked calls to 911 emergency services, with many users on X reporting issues in major cities, including San Francisco. “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 posted on social media platform X early Thursday. The department advised affected users to report incidents by landline.
The outage also spurred other local government statements, with Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens saying city employees could make and receive 911 calls, but authorities knew many AT&T customers couldn’t. U.S. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida) posted on X that he had approached AT&T to discuss the outages.
“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 posted on social media.
AT&T shares were down 2.4% at $16.60 as of about 3 p.m. ET Thursday.
(Correction—Feb. 23, 2024: This story has been corrected to reflect that T-Mobile and Verizon services did not suffer an outage on Feb. 22, 2023.)
(Update—Feb. 22, 2024: This story was updated to include AT&T service updates and comments from T-Mobile.)