AT&T’s network has been down for many of its customers across the country, including locally here in the DC Metropolitan Area on Thursday morning. The outage does not allow for customers to make/receive calls send receive texts, or access the internet without WiFi. Other phone services saw similar outages Thursday morning, but the spike has been seen in AT&T service, according to several news sources online.
Alert Montgomery has sent out the following notice: “There are reports of cascading cellular service outages among major telecommunication provider such as: AT&T, Consumer Cellular, T-Mobile, US Cellular, and Verizon. The reported outage has also affected FirstNet. If you need to contact 9-1-1 for emergency services, please utilize a landline. Text to 9-1-1 is not impacted.”
DownDetector.com, a website that tracks service outages (self-reported only), shows problems reported in several major cities. AT&T has acknowledged the widespread outage, but a reason for it has not been provided and it’s unknown when service will be restored. In a statement, AT&T wrote, “Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. We are working urgently to restore service to them. We encourage the use of Wi-Fi calling until service is restored.” The company has also been responding to complaints online by asking customers to send direct messages to customer service. Not everyone has been affected by these outages.