AT&T said that cellular customers were experiencing outages this morning, but there were also reports of widespread disruptions at other carriers.
“We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that is happening and 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,” AT&T said in a statement.
Other carriers also were reporting disruptions, including Verizon and T-Mobile, according to Downdetector.com. Verizon and T-Mobile each said that their service was working normally but that customers were impacted when connecting to other carriers, according to the Associated Press.
The outages were widespread enough that local emergency service officials advised residents to use alternate means of contacting 911. In Montgomery County, MD, the PIO advised, “ATTENTION: There are now reports of cascading cellular service outages among major telecommunication providers such as: AT&T, Consumer Cellular, T-Mobile, US Cellular, & Verizon. If you need to contact 9-1-1 for emergency services, please utilize a landline or Text to 9-1-1”
The San Francisco Fire Department advised residents, “We are actively engaged and monitoring this. 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.”
An FCC spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to Downdetector, more than 70,000 AT&T customers had submitted reports of problems as of 9 a.m. ET. The site monitors service disruptions via user reports and social media.
