AT&T

After customers experienced extensive cellular interruptions in the United States, AT&T service was restored.

The carrier said on Thursday night that a process error, not a hack, was the cause of the outage that caused thousands of people to lose service for hours.

A process error, not a hack, was most likely the source of AT&T's extensive outage on Thursday that left thousands of customers without service for hours.

Although the issue began early on Thursday, AT&T stated in the afternoon that all customers' service had been restored.

According to the company's first analysis, the disruption "was caused by the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyber attack," it claimed on Thursday night. 

Customers reported more than 32,000 AT&T outages on Thursday at around 4 a.m. ET. According to the website, reports decreased until rising once more to over 50,000 at around 7 a.m., with the most of the problems being reported in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Dallas.

Just before eight in the morning ET, that figure shot up to over 71,000.

"Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning," AT&T stated in response to inquiries about the problem early on Thursday morning.

There were interruptions reported by other cellular operators as well, such as Verizon, T-Mobile, and Cricket Wireless. According to Verizon and T-Mobile, individuals impacted had attempted to get in touch with AT&T customers.

Verizon stated on Thursday morning that consumers attempting to reach another carrier are the only ones affected by the disruptions, not its network itself.

Additionally, T-Mobile reported early on Thursday that there was no network interruption.

AT&T-owned Cricket Wireless, which makes use of its network, also encountered issues with its cellular service. As of 8 a.m. ET on Thursday, more than 13,500 users had reported disruptions. By 10 a.m., the figure had dropped to about 10,000.

"Allow us to explain that there is a nationwide network incident impacting multiple services," the business said on X. "It is Cricket's top priority to restore service to full capacity as quickly and safely as possible." 

Since then, all impacted AT&T customers have received their service back.

"We have given all of our impacted customers their wireless service back. We are truly sorry to them. In a statement, the business stated that "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."

There is no indication of a cyberattack, according to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and AT&T has not disclosed any further information regarding the cause of the statewide service disruption.

The most likely reason for the outage, according to Lee McKnight, an associate professor at Syracuse University's School of Information Studies, "is a cloud misconfiguration," which is "just fancy word for saying human error."

The event is being actively investigated by the Federal Communications Commission. Helping out are the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Some consumers were worried about their ability to contact 911 on Thursday morning due to the outages.

The San Francisco Fire Department announced on X that it was aware of a problem influencing calls made and received by AT&T wireless subscribers, including those to 911.

The office stated, "The San Francisco 911 center is still operational." "If you are an AT&T customer and are having trouble reaching 911, please try making a landline call. If that isn't an option, kindly try contacting a friend or relative who has a different carrier and ask them to make a 911 call on your behalf.

The public was also informed about the outage by warnings on X from the Office of Emergency Management and Communications in Chicago, the Prince William County Police Department in Virginia, and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department in North Carolina. However, it was acknowledged that some customers were momentarily unable to contact 911.

In a previous statement, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens stated that the city was obtaining data to help with the problem's resolution.

"E-911 in Atlanta has the ability to take in and make outgoing calls. Customers of AT&T have called to report that their phones are in SOS mode, according to Dickens.

Users of iPhones who noticed SOS in their status bar during the outage were still able to make emergency calls using other carrier networks.

Organizations throughout advised citizens not to test their service by dialing 911. This line is reserved for actual emergencies.