AT&T says it has fully recovered following a major outage on Thursday that disrupted connectivity for customers across the country.
“We have restored wireless service to all our affected customers,” the company said in a statement Thursday afternoon. “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.”
It remains unclear what exactly caused the issue. AT&T didn’t immediately respond to a request for additional details. The Federal Communications Commission said on X that it was investigating the issue.
We are aware of the reported wireless outages, and our Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau is actively investigating. We are in touch with AT&T and public safety authorities, including FirstNet, as well as other providers.
— The FCC (@FCC) February 22, 2024
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Reports on social media suggested the outage was widespread, with Downdetector, a website where users can report issues with websites and services, showing a spike in problems with AT&T nationwide beginning at around 4 a.m. ET. The carrier recommended that customers use services like Wi-Fi to connect with others while the network was down.
When on Wi-Fi, you can still make calls and send messages through services like Apple’s iMessage and FaceTime, and Meta’s WhatsApp. AT&T also offers Wi-Fi calling that lets you place calls over a Wi-Fi network using your regular number if you already have the feature enabled on your device.
As of 11 a.m. ET, the service did appear to be returning for some people. In an updated statement, the company said service had been restored to 75% of its network.
“Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning,” the company said. “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 remaining customers.”
AT&T said that its first responder network, known as FirstNet, was operating during the outage.
“Early this morning, service was affected for some subscribers across the country. The team took immediate action, prioritizing restoration of public safety’s communications, and service is currently running normally across the FirstNet network,” the company said.
“As always, we take our responsibility for delivering effective communications for the public safety community seriously and are committed to network stability and transparency. An assessment of this event is underway, and we will continue to keep you updated as we learn more.”
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While reports suggested that issues were also affecting the networks of Verizon and T-Mobile, both carriers told CNET that their respective offerings were fine.
“We did not experience an outage. Our network is operating normally,” a T-Mobile spokesperson said. “Down Detector is likely reflecting challenges our customers were having attempting to connect to users on other networks.”
“Verizon’s network is operating normally,” a Verizon spokesperson said. “Some customers experienced issues this morning when calling or texting with customers served by another carrier. We are continuing to monitor the situation.”
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