Thousands of people in the US were unable to make calls – even to 911 – yesterday due to a massive outage. Concerns around a cyber attack were spread on social media, but AT&T now confirms this was due to a software update.
In a network update, the carrier said: “Based on our initial review, we believe that today’s outage was caused by the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyber attack.
“We are continuing our assessment of today’s outage to ensure we keep delivering the service that our customers deserve.”
The outage started at roughly 04:00 am ET on Thursday (Feb 22). The downtime lasted several hours, with three-quarters of the network being restored by 11:15 am ET. Then, all affected customers were back online by 3:10 pm ET.
The most impacted areas included Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Atlanta and at one point, customer complaints reached a high of 74,000.
With calling out of the question, some emergency services asked their residents to text them if they needed to. This was the case for people in Virginia under Prince William County. The San Francisco Fire Department also urged people to call from a landline if they’re unable to get ahold of vital services.
We are aware of an issue impacting AT&T wireless customers from making and receiving any phone calls (including to 911).
We are actively engaged and monitoring this.
The San Francisco 911 center is still operational.
If you are an AT&T customer and cannot get through to 911,… pic.twitter.com/TUIEBkqmkI
— SAN FRANCISCO FIRE DEPARTMENT MEDIA (@SFFDPIO) February 22, 2024
Impact on other carriers
Although AT&T experienced the most significant of the issues, other cellular carriers had ongoing outages too. Cricket Wireless, a carrier that uses AT&T’s network, was down for some time, as were some users of Verizon, Consumer Cellular, T-Mobile, Boost Mobile, US Cellular, and Straight Tak.
However, both T-Mobile and Verizon have confirmed their networks weren’t directly experiencing service outages. They predict reports of issues were likely due to their users being unable to call or text people on AT&T.Featured image: Photo by Niek Verlaan on Pixabay
