Thousands Affected as Emergency Calls and Texts Fail Across Major Cities
Nationwide AT&T Outage: A significant outage in AT&T’s cellular network has left thousands of customers unable to make calls, including critical emergency 911 calls, across the United States. The disruption began early Thursday morning, affecting major cities such as San Francisco, Houston, Atlanta, and Chicago. Reports indicate that over 74,000 incidents were logged by outage tracking services, with users experiencing difficulties in sending messages, browsing the web, and connecting with emergency services.
AT&T has attributed the outage to a software update that was improperly executed during network expansion efforts, clarifying that it was not the result of a cyberattack. The company announced that services were largely restored by midday, but the incident raised concerns about the reliability of communication networks, especially during emergencies. Local authorities and emergency services urged affected individuals to use landlines or alternative means to reach emergency responders while the issues persisted.
As investigations continue into the root causes of the outage, AT&T has committed to enhancing its systems to prevent future disruptions, emphasizing its priority of maintaining reliable service for its extensive customer base.