Cellular outages hit thousands in US; 911 calls also affected
A cellular outage early on Thursday hit thousands of AT&T users in the United States, disrupting calls and text messages as well as emergency services in major cities including San Francisco.
More than 50,000 incidents were reported around 7:00 a.m. ET, according to data from outage tracking website Downdetector.com.
Users of Verizon, T-Mobile and UScellular also reported disruptions, though the outage with the services was much smaller than AT&T, according to Downdetector.
The outage was impacting people's ability to reach emergency services by dialing 911, a post on social media platform X from the San Francisco Fire Department said.
"We are aware of an issue impacting AT&T wireless customers from making and receiving any phone calls (including to 911)," the fire department said on the platform.
We are aware of an issue impacting AT&T wireless customers from making and receiving any phone calls (including to 911).
— SAN FRANCISCO FIRE DEPARTMENT MEDIA (@SFFDPIO) February 22, 2024
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
The companies did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment on the reason behind the outages. — Reuters