FCC Investigating AT&T Widespread Outage That Halted 911 Calls

AT&T acknowledged Thursday it suffered extensive outages on its wireless network, including the ability of customers to call 911. The FCC is investigating.

“Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions,” the carrier said at 11:15 a.m. EST: “Our network teams took immediate action and so far three-quarters of our network has been restored. We are working as quickly as possible to restore service to remaining customers.” An AT&T spokesperson in the afternoon said wireless service had been restored for all affected customers. “Keeping our customers connected remains our top priority, and we are taking steps to ensure our customers do not experience this again in the future,” the spokesperson said.

“We are aware of the reported wireless outages, and our Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau is actively investigating,” an FCC spokesperson said in an email: “We are in touch with AT&T and public safety authorities, including FirstNet, as well as other providers.”

The outage started around 4 a.m. EST and more than 74,000 customers reported outages at 9 a.m. Thursday, according to Downdetector. That number fell to just more than 20,000 by noon. T-Mobile and Verizon customers reported much smaller outages at about the same time as AT&T reports peaked, Downdetector said. Industry officials said those reports may have been tied to customers' failed attempts to connect to someone on the AT&T network.

“We did not experience an outage,” T-Mobile said: “Down Detector is likely reflecting challenges our customers were having attempting to connect to users on other networks.” Verizon had a similar message: “Our network continues to function normally.”

“Our nationwide network contractor, AT&T, took immediate action to prioritize restoration for public safety users of FirstNet and has confirmed service is currently running normally across the FirstNet network,” a FirstNet Authority spokesperson emailed: “The FirstNet Authority will work with AT&T to conduct an assessment of the outage.”

“We are aware of an issue impacting AT&T wireless customers from making and receiving any phone calls (including to 911),” the San Francisco Fire Department said on X early in the day: “We are actively engaged and monitoring this.” The department urged people to use a wireline phone if they needed to call 911.

The Washington, D.C., Office of Unified Communications told residents in a text that it was aware of the outage and was monitoring the situation: “If you are unable to dial 911, use a landline phone, try calling from Wi-Fi, or visit a police or fire station."

X was flooded with outage comments. Some customers demanded rebates during the period their service was out, while others complained it took AT&T hours to acknowledge problems.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said he didn’t know what caused the outage. “I do know it will be 100 times worse when #China launches a cyber attack on America on the eve of a #Taiwan invasion,” Rubio said: “And it won’t be just cell service they hit, it will be your power, your water and your bank.”

“Today's cell service outage is another example of the critical need to keep AM radio in cars,” NAB said: “When the internet is out, power lines are down and cellphones can't find a signal, AM radio is there.”