Cellphone users across the country were faced with no service on Thursday, sparking fears of a massive cyber attack.
On Friday, representatives from AT&T blamed the outage on a “software glitch” that caused service interruptions for customers on AT&T, Cricket Wireless, Verizon, and T-Mobile. Tens of thousands of users were impacted by the outage, which was not fully resolved until around 2:10 p.m. CT, according to a statement from the Dallas-based company.
It took the company about 10 hours to fully restore service, though most users had service again within six hours of the outage that was first reported around 4:00 a.m.
“Based on our initial review, we believe the outage was caused by the application & execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyberattack,” AT&T posted on X. “We are continuing our assessment to ensure we keep delivering the service that our customers deserve.”
The bulk of the 74,000 customers impacted had service through AT&T, which is the nation’s largest 5G carrier and covers about 290 million users in the United States alone. Service disruptions to T-Mobile and Verizon users were also reported, but those companies said they believed the issue was customers attempting to contact AT&T users. AT&T’s Cricket Wireless reported about 9,000 outages.
The Dallas Express reported that the outage impacted emergency services by making it difficult for individuals to place emergency calls. While most cell phones have an emergency feature, allowing users to call 911, first responders did not receive geographic data typically sent by phones during emergency calls.
Emergency calls aside, many users could not make calls, browse the internet, or send text messages during the outage. A workaround was possible using Wi-Fi.
The outage caused an uproar within the Federal government as numerous agencies immediately began investigations over fears of a hacking attempt. The New York Post reported that the Federal Communications Commission, the CyberSecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security all opened investigations into the incident.
“We are being told AT&T has no reason to think this was a cyber or security incident,” White House spokesperson John Kirby said per the New York Post. “But the bottom line is we don’t have all the answers.”
Posts on social media show many customers going to AT&T stores demanding answers, with sales staff having little information. Vibe captured some of the more dramatic social media posts that resulted from the outage.