AT&T outage today? Several states across the US reporting wireless cellular network issues
Several AT&T and Cricket Wireless customers in the United States woke up without cell service – an outage that lasted hours on Thursday. Several people reported on social networks and network-tracking websites that they could not make calls or connect to their cell provider's networks.
AT&T and Cricket Wireless confirmed they were experiencing network issues; however, shortly before 4 p.m. on Thursday, both carriers reported that service across their networks had been fully restored.
The outage prompted several nationwide concerns among law enforcement agencies as people on those networks could not contact 911. Some experts recommend people connect to their WiFi networks or a WiFi network to make an internet-based call if needed.
The Flagler County Sheriff's Office in Flagler County, Florida, posted a warning early Thursday morning to their network.
When did the AT&T outage begin?
A spike of outages was initially reported on AT&T's website beginning around 3:45 a.m. – showing about 1,600 without service. About an hour later, that number jumped to over 32,000.
According to a check early Thursday morning, the company said 57% of the issues related to mobile phones – 35% had no signal, while 8% reported problems related to mobile internet.
Multiple FOX TV Stations faced challenges communicating with their station's field crews on Thursday morning.
What states were most affected?
According to Downdetector, the cities most affected by the outages included Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, San Antonio, San Diego, Chicago, San Francisco, and Honolulu.
MORE: Can a solar flare be to blame for the AT&T nationwide outage?
When was AT&T and Cricket Wireless service restored?
AT&T and Cricket Wireless released a series of statements throughout Thursday. As of 4 p.m., AT&T and Cricket Wireless confirmed that their networks had been fully restored. Both networks apologized for the outage and the inconvenience to customers.
T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless issued statements to FOX 35 early Thursday reporting no issues with their networks and attributed reports on DownDetector.com to AT&T customers attempting to reach customers on their networks.
As for the cause of the outages, there was speculation that a series of solar flares that happened overnight could have possibly impacted cell service; however, NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center debunked that theory – and said it was "unlikely" that this contributed.
AT&T later clarified that the outage was due to "an incorrect process" used as the company was expanding its network, according to its website.
"Based on our initial review, we believe that today’s outage was caused by the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyber attack," according to an update from AT&T.
The company said its assessment of Thursday’s outage is ongoing.
Why does my phone say SOS?
If you get an "SOS" in your cellphone's status bar, you do not have service, and your device isn't connected to a cellular network.
MORE: What to do if your iPhone is stuck on SOS mode and you can't call 911
According to Apple, your device can still make emergency calls – although some law enforcement agencies report that residents cannot call 911.