AT&T plans to issue refunds to some customers Thursday after widespread cell phone and internet outages lasted several hours.
In a statement on its website, the company said it would contact potentially affected customers and automatically apply a $5 credit to each account, the estimated average cost of service for one day.
Credits are typically applied within two billing cycles. AT&T Wireless customers are eligible. This offer does not apply to AT&T Business, AT&T Prepaid, or Cricket accounts (AT&T owns Cricket Wireless).
An AT&T spokesperson told TIME that the company’s business, prepaid and cricket account holders are “valued customers and we have options available to them if they may be affected by the outage.” he said in an email, but did not provide further details. “We believe we have contacted customers who may be affected, but if you need assistance with your situation, please use our call center.”
AT&T apologized for the network outage in a statement announcing the compensation.
“We are aware of the frustration this outage has caused and know we have disappointed many customers,” the company said in a statement. “We understand that this may have impacted their ability to connect with family, friends and others. Methods can be confusing.”
“We want our customers to feel confident in our commitment to reliably connect anytime, anywhere,” the company continued. “We are taking steps to ensure this never happens again in the future. Our priority is to continually improve and ensure we remain connected to our customers.”
More than 70,000 customers were affected by Thursday’s outage, according to downdetector.com. The most affected areas were Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Indianapolis, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, and New York City.
Customers first reported the outage around 3:30 a.m. ET on Thursday. AT&T acknowledged the issue in an update posted to its website at 11:15 a.m. ET and marked the situation as resolved about four hours later. The company said it believes the outage was caused by the incorrect process it applied when expanding its network.
According to downdetector.com, Cricket had 13,638 outage reports at its peak. The company said on its website that the issue was resolved approximately two hours after it was announced.
TIME asked Cricket if it had a compensation plan.
On Thursday, a person claiming to be a Cricket customer took to X (formerly Twitter) to say he almost missed work because he couldn’t use mobile data for directions, and asked for a month of free service.
The Cricket Wireless account responded: “Once the outage ends, we may be able to provide compensation. Our current priority is to resolve this issue as soon as possible.”
