'I Want a Free Month': Thousands of Customers Furious at AT&T After Widespread Outages The carrier has not yet disclosed the root cause of the issue.
By Emily Rella
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
AT&T suffered mass outages across the U.S. on Thursday with many unable to use their devices to receive or send messages and phone calls.
"Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. We are working urgently to restore service to them," an AT&T spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News. "We encourage the use of Wi-Fi calling until service is restored."
Emergency service organizations across the U.S. on Thursday said that the AT&T outages were so bad that some customers were unable to make or receive calls to 911, per the Wall Street Journal.
According to DownDetector, the outages peaked just after 8 a.m. EST with just over 74,000 customers reporting an issue. More than 90% of the issues recorded said customers had no signal.
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Though the outages were nationwide, major metropolitan areas including Chicago, New York City, and Miami were affected the most. In Texas, large cities including Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin were also affected.
"I am in Illinois and we have not had any service since about 330 a.m. SOS signal only. Taking advice to use Wi-Fi calling at this time but it doesn't help in an emergency if you are out and about," one customer wrote on DownDetector.
When trying to send texts or complete phone calls, affected customers were seeing 'SOS' on the top corner of their devices where AT&T and the number of service bars usually are displayed. When a phone is stuck in SOS mode, it still should be able to make emergency calls via satellite.
Many took to social media to complain and see what was happening with their networks.
AT&T is having a nationwide outage? Is that why my phone says SOS? Is this the end? Should I smear mud on my face and get ready to eat my neighbors
— Imani Gandy (Orca's Version) ⚓️ (@AngryBlackLady) February 22, 2024
AT&T, I want a free month for this sos only thing.
— LYSSA ? (@lyssaajj) February 22, 2024
Not going to lie. It's one thing to have your cell service not work. It's a whole other thing to have to find out through social media and the news. @ATT you not going to address this at all? No email to let us know? No social media post? Not even a public statement? #attoutage
— Von (@vwillengr) February 22, 2024
Imagine getting stranded in the middle of nowhere and not being able to reach anyone cause your phone carrier is AT&T #ATTdown pic.twitter.com/CIXc38qyAt
— Jeffrey. (@jefreeb) February 22, 2024
T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless customers also reported outages though they were not as widespread, with Verizon outages peaking at just over 4,200 customers and T-Mobile peaking at just under 2,100 customers at the same time as the AT&T peak.
"Verizon's network is operating normally," a Verizon spokesperson told CNN in a statement, noting that Verizon customers reporting issues may have been trying to contact customers on an AT&T device. "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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The situation is still developing.
As of 11 a.m. EST, over 63,500 AT&T customers were still reporting issues.
