A widespread outage hit AT&T customers across the United States, leaving many unable to make calls or send texts for over 10 hours.
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On Thursday, thousands of AT&T users experienced disruptions in service, affecting their ability to make or receive phone calls and send text messages. The outage, which began around 4:30 am ET, affected customers in major cities like Indianapolis, Louisville, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Atlanta.
AT&T promptly acknowledged the issue and assured customers that they were working on resolving it. While the outage persisted, affected customers were still able to make calls and send texts over Wi-Fi. Although other carriers like Verizon, T-Mobile, and Cricket Wireless also reported some outages, the scale was not as extensive as AT&T's.
After several hours, AT&T managed to restore wireless service for all affected users. The outage impacted over 70,000 customers, prompting concerns and even federal investigations. However, authorities ruled out a cyberattack as the cause. AT&T currently boasts a 5G network covering more than 290 million users nationwide. The disruption lasted for more than 10 hours.
In an official statement, AT&T attributed the outage to an incorrect process used during network expansion. The carrier assured customers that steps were being taken to prevent such incidents in the future.
Aside from AT&T, other carriers such as T-Mobile and Verizon also experienced glitches, including signal loss. While AT&T reported over 30,000 outage cases around 4:30 am ET, Verizon had over 3,000, and T-Mobile had over 1,000. Additionally, Boost Mobile and Cricket Wireless also faced some outages, though less severe.
Following the outage, experts advised people to identify nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and learn how to use Wi-Fi calling. They also recommended knowing friends or neighbors with different service providers for emergency situations, ensuring the ability to call 911 if necessary.
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