Earlier today, customers of wireless carriers complained that they were having issues making phone calls.
Customers turned to DownDetector to report the outage that their specific carrier was facing. From the data, the website reported a surge of complaints that started around 4:00 AM EST. After six hours, customers reported that they were having an issue with AT&T’s service.
Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless released a statement about the supposed outage:
“Verizon's network remains fully operational. Some customers may have experienced issues this morning when calling or texting those served by another carrier. Our network continues to function normally.”
T-Mobile also released its own statement:
“We 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.”
After the outage was reported, a spokesperson or AT&T spoke to CNN:
“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.”
Apart from the major wireless carriers, there were also issues reported by customers of Cricket Wireless, Boost Mobile, Consumer Cellular, Mint Mobile, Straight Talk, US Cellular, Spectrum, Comcast, Google Fiber, and Starlink.
By 3:10 PM EST, AT&T released a statement that they have fixed the issue and restored wireless service to affected customers.
“We have restored wireless service to all our affected customers. We sincerely apologize to them. Keeping our customers connected remains our top priority, and we are taking steps to ensure our customers do not experience this again in the future.”
An inside source of The Mobile Report shared that the massive nationwide outage could have been caused by a “server migration gone wrong.” The publication also reported that the outage first hit AT&T then followed to FirstNet and the MVNOs that use AT&T’s networks.
Although the issue has already been fixed, AT&T has not yet given an explanation on what caused it. But in a report by ABC News earlier, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security were alerted with the outage. Both agencies have “urgently” started investigating whether AT&T was hit by a cyberattack, especially since the outage affected nationwide customers and other carriers too.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said they are already looking into the issue and are already in touch with public safety authorities. We should expect a more detailed update once these agencies are done with their investigations.
Source: The Verge, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, CNN, AT&T ,The Mobile Report ,ABC News
