What Caused AT&T Outage? UPDATE
BREAKING
In a follow up to yesterday’s breaking news, AT&T now has an update on the outage that affected 70,000 customers nationwide. According to Fox News:
“Based on our initial review, we believe the outage was caused by the application & execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyberattack,” AT&T posted on X.
AT&T Outage Not Solved
Thursday, tens of thousands of AT&T customers in Massachusetts and across the country woke up to a problem. Zero cell, and texting service. What’s worse, this outage shut down your ability to call 9-11 in case of an emergency using your CELL service. Many were not aware that you can still access 911 through the internet connection on your phone.
Anyone with AT&T had to rely on a land line, or internet instant message video services to communicate in real time. Of course, general internet communication on social media was available.
As you will see below, AT&T didn’t address it until 10am central time on their website. At 2:10 pm CT, AT&T reported that service has been restored. But many were affected much earlier than the 10:15 AM CT announcement on their website.
According to AT & T’s website:
Last updated February 22, 2024, 2:10 p.m. CT
We have restored wireless service to all our affected customers. We sincerely apologize to them. Keeping our customers connected remains our top priority, and we are taking steps to ensure our customers do not experience this again in the future.
Here’s the first message:
February 22, 2024, 10:15 a.m. CT
Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. Our network teams took immediate action and so far three-quarters of our network has been restored. We are working as quickly as possible to restore service to remaining customers.
Oddly, only AT & T customers were affected.
The Federal Communications Commission added this on X:
What Caused The AT&T Outage?
Some on media are claiming that the outage was caused by a solar flare which was discovered last night. AT&T has not commented or confirmed that. A solar flare that only targeted AT&T? There were no reports of any other providers being affected. This X member shoots that theory down:
Although AT&T provided no official reason for the outage, the issue appears to be related to how cellular services hand off calls from one network to the next, a process known as peering, according to an industry source who spoke on the condition of anonymity. A US cyber official tracking the AT&T outage told CNN there has so far been no indication that the outage was caused by malicious cyber activity, but the investigation is ongoing.
Stay tuned for updates.
