Why does my phone say SOS? Nationwide AT&T outage sparks 911 fears as dispatch centers report widespread failures
A nationwide outage at AT&T has users across the United States calling 911 as dispatchers report widespread outages.
The outage appears to have started on Tuesday afternoon, with reports peaking around 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. according to Down Detector – a website that monitors outages.
The states that appear to be hardest hit so far are California, Texas, Alabama, Kentucky, Ohio, Florida and Georgia – although more states are beginning to report problems, said Nick Sotor.
AT&T blamed a critical outage at one of its switching centers, which resulted in a series of problems including service delays and a complete loss of network connectivity. according to The Mobile Report.
The problem mainly affects iPhone users and has even affected emergency services, with officials in Seminole County, Florida to insist People with a problem can contact the non-urgent helpline.
A nationwide outage at AT&T has users across the United States calling 911 as dispatchers report widespread outages
Many customers have now turned to X to vent their frustrations over the hours-long outage, while they search for answers from the telephone company.
“Nice of AT&T to have a nationwide cell outage without publicly announcing it,” one user wrote.
“Just thousands of people wondering why they are on SOS mode when there is ‘no outage in their area.’ One ridiculous company gets hacked, then a massive nationwide outage, and the blows keep coming,” he said, urging the Federal Communications Commission to take action.
‘AT&T is making me angry with all these outages. It’s not a reason why I [can’t] ‘I’m out and about and my phone says SOS. Like wtf,’ wrote another.
Many AT&T customers have expressed their frustrations with X
One customer even urged the federal government to take action
When customers were fortunate enough to contact AT&T’s support desk, the company acknowledged the outage but offered little reassurance.
There is currently no resolution and the company has not provided an estimated time for when the issue will be resolved.
According to The Mobile Report, the problem has been made worse by the fact that most of the company’s senior technical support staff has gone home, so the issue is still not resolved.
Still, AT&T officials say they are working to resolve the issue, stressing that it only affects a “limited number of our customers.”
“We are working to resolve a software issue that may be preventing a limited number of customers from connecting to our wireless network,” a spokesperson told DailyMail.com.
“Our top priority is to keep our customers connected, so we appreciate your patience as we work to resolve this issue.”
At around 11:20 p.m. EST, a company spokesperson contacted DailyMail.com with an update on the situation.
“We have resolved a software issue that was preventing a limited number of customers from connecting to our wireless network,” a spokesperson said.
“We apologize for the inconvenience. We appreciate our customers’ patience as we work to resolve this issue.”
The outage came on the same day the FCC announced AT&T would pay a $950,000 fine for failing to notify call centers about a similar outage in 2023 that affected police departments in Illinois, Kansas, Texas and Wisconsin.