Thousands of outages affecting AT&T’s wireless network were reported early Thursday morning, according to tracking site DownDetector.
The outages appeared to start around 4 a.m. Thursday, with the number of reported outages surging to more than 70,000 as of 8 a.m., according to the tracking website. They were most concentrated in Houston, Atlanta, Miami and Chicago, but affected customers across the country.
AT&T confirmed to The Hill its customers were experiencing some disruptions to their network and that the company was working to resolve the issue.
“Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. We are working urgently to restore service to them,” the AT&T statement reads. “We encourage the use of Wi-Fi calling until service is restored.”
Customers from other networks also reported experiencing issues with their wireless connections, but those reports were not as widespread as AT&T. There were about 4,000 reports of issues among Verizon users as of 8 a.m. Thursday, but the company confirmed there was no problem with its network.
“Verizon’s network is operating normally,” Verizon said in a statement. “Some customers experienced issues this morning when calling or texting with customers served by another carrier. We are continuing to monitor the situation.”
There were also reports of T-Mobile customers having service issues, according to DownDetector, but the company affirmed that its network was also not experiencing an outage to The Hill. The provider said the tracking website was “likely reflecting challenges our customers were having attempting to connect to users on other networks.”
Some local law enforcement agencies warned residents that 911 calling could be down amid the reported outages.
“AT&T has reported that some 9-1-1 calls may not be received by the county. If your 9-1-1 call does not go thru, please call 703-792-6500 to report an emergency,” Virginia’s Prince William County Police Department wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“An update will be sent once the problem has been resolved,” they added.
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