AT&T Rocked By Nationwide Cellular Outage, 911 Calls Affected Too

AT&T customers nationwide are reporting outages that are preventing outbound calls, including emergency phone calls. Starting early this morning, folks were noting that they were unable to get work done or complete phone calls, and it would seem that this was not just affecting the AT&T network. Carriers running off the back of AT&T’s network, as well as providers like Verizon and T-Mobile, were also getting reports of outages, though regarding the latter, it may be a matter of cross-network communications and unreachable AT&T customers leading to the problems.

Around 4 AM EST today, reports started to flood in on DownDetector regarding outages on AT&T’s network. Simultaneously, reports also came in regarding Cricket, Verizon, T-Mobile, and other carriers, some of which are mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) who use AT&T’s infrastructure rather than their own. These reports appear to have peaked around 9 AM EST, with some 74,000 DownDetector reports regarding AT&T specifically.

We are aware of an issue impacting AT&T wireless customers from making and receiving any phone calls (including to 911).

We are actively engaged and monitoring this.

The San Francisco 911 center is still operational.

If you are an AT&T customer and cannot get through to 911,… pic.twitter.com/TUIEBkqmkI

— SAN FRANCISCO FIRE DEPARTMENT MEDIA (@SFFDPIO) February 22, 2024

Around 5:53 AM EST, San Fransisco Fire Department Media tweeted out that an issue affecting AT&T customers was preventing calls to 911, though the call center was still open. As such, they recommended calling from a landline or getting ahold of someone on a different cell carrier to call 911 on your behalf. AT&T support also noted through support messages that people could still do WiFi calling or texting to solve the problem.

As it stands, reports are still coming in about the outage, but it would seem that it is starting to taper off as the day goes on. In theory, service will be coming back and will be restored soon but we will have to see how that shapes up in time. This is a good reminder for folks that technology can fail, especially when you need it the most, so having a backup or alternate plan in case things go sideways when least expected would be worthwhile.