AT&T, other mobile providers suffer widespread outages
Feb. 22 (UPI) -- Cellphone customers reported nearly 90,000 issues with their devices, affecting mostly AT&T users, Thursday morning.
AT&T had received more than 71,400 reports of issues at about 8 a.m. EST, with their service with 49% of those calls complaining about no signal, according to the website Downdetector.com.
"Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning," AT&T said in a statement late Thursday morning. "Our network teams took immediate action and so far three-quarters of our network has been restored. We are working as quickly as possible to restore service to [our] remaining customers."
AT&T did not explain how and why the disruption happened or how many throughout the country were affected by its own count.
Eric Goldstein, the executive assistant director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said it has been in touch with AT&T about the outage did not elaborate further.
"CISA is aware of the reports and is working closely with AT&T to understand the cause of the outage and its impact, and stand ready to offer any assistance needed," Goldstein said.
Cricket Wireless, which is owned by AT&T, saw more than 13,500 customers affected by the outage. Cricket also uses the same AT&T networks. Down Detector said 68% of Cricket's complaints centered around not receiving a signal.
"Allow us to explain that there is a nationwide network incident impacting multiple services," Cricket said in a statement. "It is Cricket's top priority to restore service to full capacity as quickly and safely as possible."
Meanwhile, T-Mobile issued a statement saying that it was not affected by the outage and believes the statistics from Down Detector reflect their customers trying to reach customers from affected networks. Down Detectors said 1,800 customers filed outage reports.
"We did not experience an outage," T-Mobile said. "Our network is operating normally."
Verizon said it received 4.300 outage issues, with 65% of users saying they had mobile phone issues. Verizon said the issue is not affecting its networks directly and "is monitoring" the situation with AT&T.
"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 said in an X post. It encouraged residents to use landlines if they cannot access their smartphones.
"We are actively engaging and monitoring this. The San Fransisco 911 center is operational."
The Maryland Department of Emergency Management sent a similar alert to residents on Thursday as well and told users to monitor television and radio reports for more information.
"We are aware of widespread Internet and cellular outages," the department said on X. "[We] are monitoring the situation."
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens issued a statement saying city officials were trying to determine if it could help to resolve the issue there.
"Atlanta's e-911is able to receive inbound and make outbound calls," Dickens said in a statement. "We have received calls from AT&T customers that their cellular phones are in SOS mode. Please call inquiries to restore service to AT&T."
Down Detector said overall service has been disrupted to 12,000 across a total of 47 websites.
