Thousands of AT&T customers suffer blackouts with their call service, service restored after hours

What should have been a normal Thursday for many AT&T users turned out to be a bit of a mess. On Thursday, February 22, more than 32,000 customers experienced a blackout when using their AT&T’s internet and call services.

Here’s a recap of everything that you need to know about this outage. According to the Down Detector website, at around 7 a.m. more than 32,000 users were affected and after a couple of hours, the figure jumped to 75,000 users. The outage disrupted calls and text messages which prompted federal investigators who projected that it could have been other causes other than a cyberattack. 

The Federal Communications Commission announced that it was investigating the issue, and on the other hand, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said it was collaborating with AT&T to manage the situation. 

Surprisingly, AT&T network is projected to cover over 290 million people across the United States, struggling for more than 9 hours with internet and call service interruptions. 

The Telco giant made a public announcement through its website, that they are making sure customers do not suffer such incidents in the future. They also stated that the outage was caused by a new solution and an upgrade to their infrastructure. 

The only bright side of this issue was that other telcos experienced similar outages, which was one-fourth of what AT&T users experienced. Users of Verizon, UScellular, Cricket Wireless, and T-Mobile also experienced disruptions according to the Down detector report. 

Most companies confirmed that their network was working smoothly and the outage was potentially linked to customers trying to access other networks. 

The FBI mentioned in a statement that, “they were communicating with the company and they are on the lookout to know if the incident had anything to do with a malicious attack.” The San Francisco Fire Department made a post on X stating that, they are aware of the disruption impacting AT&T wireless customers, especially when it comes to receiving emergency calls. 

X (formally Twitter) went agog with the disruption. One X user complained about being unable to reach emergency services by dialling 911. 

The disruptions were over after 9 hours. They also apologized to customers in a statement.