U.S. cell phone users have reported outages nationwide Thursday morning.
According to downdetector.com, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Cricket Wireless, Boost and other cellular network users reported outages starting around 4 a.m. The outage tracking website’s “heat maps” show outages reported in New York, Boston, Montreal, Los Angeles, Washington, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Seattle and San Francisco.
CNBC reports the largest number of issues were reported by AT&T customers, peaking at nearly 32,000 outages around 4:30 a.m. ET. Outages doubled to 64,000 reports at 8 a.m.
Erie County 911 services in Erie, Pennsylvania, confirmed to yourerie.com that AT&T is experiencing a nationwide outage. First Net, a network that connects first responders, is also being affected by the outage.
“We are aware of an issue impacting AT&T wireless customers from making and receiving any phone calls (including to 911). We are actively engaged and monitoring this,” the San Francisco Fire Department said on X (formerly Twitter). “The San Francisco 911 center is still operational. If you are an AT&T customer and cannot get through to 911, then please try calling from a landline. If that is not an option then please try to get ahold of a friend or family member who is a customer of a different carrier and ask them to call 911 on your behalf. Do not call or text 911 to simply test your phone service.”
According to the Daily Mail, AT&T iPhone users have reported their phones stuck in SOS mode, which means users can only make calls to emergency services. Customers in New Orleans said making phone calls was impossible, but texts still appeared to work.
A cause for the disruption has not been named.
AT&T and T-Mobile did not immediately comment on the issue. A Verizon spokesperson told CNBC before 8 a.m. ET that there was no issue with the Verizon Wireless network, saying customers are only impacted if they try to reach out to a phone user on the carrier experiencing the problem.
