AT&T US Cellular Network Outage

On February 22, 2024, AT&T’s US wireless network suffered a prolonged outage beginning in the early morning hours. Customers across the country lost the ability to make calls, send texts, and access mobile data. Phones displayed “SOS Only” as the network failed to register. The outage lasted up to 12 hours for some users and AT&T counted the incident as affecting approximately 1.7 million accounts.

911 emergency services were impacted in multiple states, leading local authorities to advise residents to use landlines or find Wi-Fi calling as alternatives. T-Mobile and Verizon also saw elevated outage reports, likely from customers of those networks attempting to communicate with AT&T subscribers.

AT&T attributed the outage to an error introduced during a network expansion procedure. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) opened a formal investigation into the outage and its impact on 911 accessibility.