Thousands of AT&T users across the United States found themselves grappling with a widespread cellular outage on Thursday, disrupting crucial communications including calls, text messages, and even emergency services in major cities such as San Francisco.
Data from the outage tracking website Downdetector.com revealed that over 73,000 incidents were reported around 8:15 a.m. ET, reflecting the scale of the disruption experienced by AT&T customers, Reuters news report said.

Acknowledging the issue, AT&T confirmed that some of its users were encountering interruptions and assured that the company was “working urgently” to restore service. In the meantime, AT&T advised its customers to utilize Wi-Fi calling as an alternative means of communication.

The ramifications of the outage extended to emergency services, with reports surfacing that individuals were unable to reach 911 due to the disruption. The San Francisco Fire Department took to social media platform X to address the situation, acknowledging the challenge faced by AT&T wireless customers in connecting to emergency services.

“We are aware of an issue impacting AT&T wireless customers from making and receiving any phone calls (including to 911),” stated the fire department in a post on the platform, highlighting the severity of the situation.

Notably, the outage did not solely affect AT&T users, as Downdetector indicated disruptions among customers of other major carriers including Verizon, T-Mobile, and UScellular.

While T-Mobile and Verizon maintained that their networks were operating normally, they suggested that the outage experienced by AT&T customers might have been influenced by attempts to connect to alternative networks during the disruption period.

The widespread nature of the outage underscores the critical dependence of modern society on cellular communication networks, prompting concerns and calls for swift resolution to restore seamless connectivity for affected users nationwide.