South Bend customers upset by cell outages endured on Thursday

SOUTH BEND — Local community members were upset over cell service outages that left them unable to make calls or send and receive texts Thursday morning and into the afternoon.

A number of Americans were dealing with cellular outages on AT&T, Cricket Wireless, Verizon, T-Mobile and other service providers, according to data from Downdetector. By about 1:30 p.m. Thursday, most customers had service restored, according to the site, but it was a fraught several hours.

“I was freaking out,” said Al Hairston, who noticed his phone wasn’t working around 5:30 a.m. Thursday. “I just came back from AT&T,” he said, where he was told him it was a nationwide problem.

AT&T had more than 73,000 outages around 9:30 a.m. EST, in locations including Indianapolis, Atlanta and Chicago. The outages began at approximately 3:30 a.m. EST. The carrier has more than 240 million subscribers, the country's largest.

A service alert on AT&T's website reads, "Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. We are working urgently to restore service to them. We will provide updates as they are available."

He demonstrated what would happen if he tried to call his wife.

He clicked on her name, pressed "call" and a message popped up from the bottom reading, “Your phone’s not registered on a network, so you can only make emergency calls.”

“Mine isn’t doing anything,” Verizon customer Johnie Carter said as Hairston joined him at the WUBS radio station, Thursday morning.

“I can’t text. I can’t get a call,” Carter said. “Nothing.”

“My phone too,” said Pastor John Ward, joining in the complaints.

“Mine came in and out,” Carter said.

“I called earlier,” Ward said. “There’s nothing they can do and they said they’re working on it.”

Ward, who uses T-Mobile, said he could still call 911.

“That’s good to know,” he said, even though the service was down, he could still access emergency services.

What caused the outages?

So far, no reason has been given for the outages. But Lee McKnight, an associate professor in the iSchool at Syracuse University, believes the most likely cause of the outage is a cloud misconfiguration, or human error.

"A possible but far less likely outcome is an intentional malicious hack of ATT's network, but the diffuse pattern of outages across the country suggests something more fundamental," McKnight said in an emailed statement.

Some media reports involved speculation about solar flares causing the outages, but experts around the country said that was unlikely.

Who else was affected by outage?

Cricket Wireless, which is owned by AT&T, had more than 13,000, the outage tracking website said Thursday.

"Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. We are working urgently to restore service to them. We encourage the use of Wi-Fi calling until service is restored," AT&T and Cricket said in a statement.

Verizon power outage

You can check for Verizon outages by visiting its check network status website.

Verizon had more than 4,000 outages and T-Mobile had more than 1,800 outages. Boost Mobile had about 700 outages.

"Verizon's network is operating normally. Some customers experienced issues this morning when calling or texting with customers served by another carrier. We are continuing to monitor the situation," Verizon said.

Customers can also sign in to their Verizon account to check for outages.

Additional outage tips are available on the Verizon service outage information.

More: Is today National Margarita Day? Where to find specials in El Paso and Texas on Thursday

AT&T outage map

AT&T customers can check for service outage information by using the company's outage map or downloading the AT&T Smart Home Manager app.

Is there a Tmobile outage?

T-Mobile said that it did not experience an outage.

"Our network is operating normally. Down Detector is likely reflecting challenges our customers were having attempting to connect to users on other networks," T-Mobile said.

If customers ever experience service problems, T-Mobile does not offer an outage map, but customers can find support contact information on the company's website.

iPhone SOS message

Some iPhone users have seen SOS messages displayed in the status bar on their cellphones. The message indicates that the device is having trouble connecting to their cellular provider's network, but it can make emergency calls through other carrier networks, according to Apple Support.

Associated Press contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: South Bend customers upset by cell outages endured on Thursday