Just prior to 8 a.m. on Thursday morning, more than 70,000 AT&T outages were reported with the majority of issues reported in Houston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and Atlanta, according to the tracking site Downdetector.
The tracking site Downdetector reported that AT&T’s network suffered widespread outages across the country affecting cellular service and internet provision.
Some customers with Verizon and T-Mobile also reported outages, although, in this moment, both companies said those affected had been trying to contact AT&T users.
That number surged to more than 71,000 just before 8 a.m. ET.
Slightly more than 1,100 T-Mobile outages and about 3,000 Verizon outages were reported as of 7 a.m. Thursday.
The causal factor in the service disruption has yet to be identified.
AT&T issued a statement Thursday morning, saying: “Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning.”
It has been revealed that the company has since made progress in restoring service.
“Our network teams took immediate action and so far three-quarters of our network has been restored,” AT&T said in a statement. “We are working as quickly as possible to restore service to remaining customers.”
Cricket Wireless, owned by AT&T and uses its network, also is experiencing cellular problems. More than 13,500 customers reported outages as of 8 a.m. ET on Thursday. The number did dip to roughly 10,000 by 10 a.m.
“Allow us to explain that there is a nationwide network incident impacting multiple services,” the company wrote on X. “It is Cricket’s top priority to restore service to full capacity as quickly and safely as possible.”
T-Mobile responded early Thursday indicating that the network didn’t suffer an outage and is operating normally, and Downdetector numbers were likely reflecting customers attempting to reach users on other networks.
Apple Support confirmed that iPhone users seeing SOS displayed in their status bar can still make emergency calls through other networks.
Agencies across the country are urging people to refrain from calling 911 to test their service. The line is for real emergencies only.
With the AT&T mobile phone outage, Luce County Sheriff Eric Gravelle is advising community members who have an emergency situation and can’t contact 911 to call Chippewa County Central Dispatch at 906-495-3312.
— with files from nbcnews.com
