AT&T did not provide further details, but claimed the incident was caused by a coding error.
WASHINGTON — AT&T on Thursday restored cell phone service to all customers affected by a nationwide outage after an hours-long outage that appeared to be the result of a technical error rather than a malicious attack. It was announced that it had become.
An AT&T spokesperson said all service was restored in an update just before 3:30 p.m. ET, about 12 hours after customers began reporting the issue.
“We have restored wireless service to all affected customers. We sincerely apologize,” AT&T said in a statement. Staying connected to our customers is our top priority, and we’re taking steps to ensure you never experience something like this again. ”
AT&T did not provide further details, but claimed the incident was caused by a coding error.
“Based on our initial investigation, we believe today’s outage was not caused by a cyber-attack, but rather by the incorrect application and execution of processes used in expanding our network,” the Dallas-based company said. Stated.
Downdetector, which tracks online outage reports submitted by users, found that more than 74,000 AT&T customers reported issues during the peak outage. By noon ET, that number had dropped to about 60,000 reported outages.
The power outage began around 3:30 a.m. ET. The company’s subscriber count is the largest in the country, exceeding 240 million.
related: AT&T Outage: What is SOS Mode on Cell Phones?
So far, the reason for the power outage has not been revealed. But Lee McKnight, an associate professor at Syracuse University’s iSchool, believes the most likely cause of the outage is cloud misconfiguration, or human error.
“While a far less likely outcome could be a deliberate malicious hack of ATT’s network, the widespread pattern of outages across the country suggests something more fundamental. McKnight said in an emailed statement.
Trouble tracking websites also showed 4,000 outage reports for Verizon and more than 1,900 outages for T-Mobile, but both companies said in statements that no outages had occurred.
“Verizon’s network is operating normally. This morning, some customers were experiencing issues when calling or texting customers served by another carrier. “We continue to monitor the situation,” Verizon said.
“Our network is operating normally. Down Detector may reflect challenges our customers were having trying to connect to users on other networks,” T-Mobile said. I am.
Down Detector announced Thursday that there were more than 9,000 outages at AT&T’s Cricket Wireless.
Even during power outages, customers can access “SOS mode,” which allows cell phone users without access to regular service to piggyback on other nearby networks and call 911 in an emergency.
The disorder became a major trend on social media overnight, with users of X (formerly Twitter) flocking to numerous hashtags to discuss the issue. #Cyber Attack was one of the trending hashtags related to the outage, but there is no indication that the attack was the cause of the outage.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
