ATT has finally restored signal to millions of Americans in several states, after last night’s outage left them without access to cell phones or 911 calls.
The outage appears to have started Tuesday afternoon, with a spike in reports around 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., according to Down Detector, a website that monitors outages.
The hardest hit states were California, Texas, Alabama, Kentucky, Ohio, Florida and Georgia. AT&T blamed the problem on a critical failure at one of its switching centers, which has led to a number of issues including service delays and a complete loss of network connectivity, according to The Mobile Report.
The issue primarily affected iPhone users, and even impacted emergency services: Officials in Seminole County, Florida, urged anyone experiencing a problem to contact their non-emergency line.
An AT&T spokesperson told the media: ‘We have resolved a software issue that was disrupting the ability of a limited number of our customers to connect to our wireless network.
‘We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate our customers’ patience as we work to resolve this issue.’
The hardest hit states were California, Texas, Alabama, Kentucky, Ohio, Florida and Georgia.
File image of AT&T headquarters in Dallas, Texas
But customers were still furious, as this was the third outage the network had suffered nationwide, the most recent having occurred just two months ago.
The company also agreed Monday to pay the government nearly $1 million after a Federal Communications Commission investigation found the company failed to deliver 911 calls to emergency call centers and failed to notify officials during an outage in August 2023.
One social media user mockingly said: “Happy AT&T Outage Day to everyone celebrating it.”
Another said on X: ‘Fix your f*** AT&T or I’m going back to T-Mobile.’
A third accused AT&T of “trying to do a Jedi mind trick.”
In June, at least 24 states experienced problems affecting thousands of Americans from North Dakota to Illinois to New York.
A nationwide AT&T service outage has prompted customers across the United States to call 911, while dispatch centers report widespread outages.
The cellular company also had an outage in February, affecting at least 70,000 Americans for up to 12 hours.
AT&T blamed the problems on a “software glitch” and told affected customers they would receive a $5 credit on their next bill.
“Based on our initial review, we believe today’s outage was caused by the implementation and execution of an incorrect process used while expanding our network, not by a cyber attack,” AT&T said.
“We continue to assess the service disruption to ensure we continue to provide the service our customers deserve.”
However, the incident was so widespread that it caught the attention of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI, which opened an investigation into the outage.
AT&T customers reported problems making 911 calls in several US states in June and February (file image)
AT&T went down in February, an outage that affected at least 70,000 Americans for up to 12 hours. Customers lined up at stores during the incident to get answers about the lack of service.
Cyber experts told DailyMail.com that the February issue had hallmarks of a cyberattack, potentially an attempt by hackers to blackmail the company or steal user data.
According to experts, the widespread nature of the attack appeared similar to “a massive distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack against the core infrastructure of the Internet.”
With DDOS, cybercriminals attempt to shut down a website or online service by bombarding it with a torrent of unnecessary requests at exactly the same time.
The surge of simple requests overloads servers, causing them to become saturated and shut down.
But the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said “the cause of the outage was unknown and there was no indication of malicious activity.”