Benzinga - by Rounak Jain, Benzinga Staff Writer.
AT&T (NYSE:T) has successfully resolved a nationwide service outage that left its customers without access to calls, texts, and data for a full day. The carrier also denied rumors of a cyber attack, stating that an internal error caused the outage.
What Happened: AT&T has officially restored service to all its customers following a day-long outage. The disruption affected AT&T users across the United States, impeding their ability to place calls, send texts, and access data, including emergency 911 calls.
The outage began on Thursday morning, with AT&T acknowledging the issue and launching an investigation shortly after thousands of customer complaints surfaced on social media.
In a statement on its website, AT&T confirmed the resolution of the outage and apologized to its customers. The carrier also assured that it is “taking steps” to prevent such an incident from recurring, though it did not disclose the cause of the significant outage.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has also acknowledged the outage and is “actively investigating.”
During the outage, AT&T advised customers to use Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi calling, assuming they had access to Wi-Fi. Other carriers, including Verizon and T-Mobile, were unaffected and operated as usual.
There were rumors of a possible cyber attack, but AT&T has denied it in its initial review. Earlier, US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's Executive Assistant Director Eric Goldstein told CNN that the agency is "working closely with AT&T to understand the cause of the outage."
Why It Matters: This outage was not an isolated incident affecting only AT&T.
A major cellular outage had swept across the U.S., causing service disruptions across telecom providers, including AT&T, Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), and T-Mobile US Inc. (NASDAQ:TMUS).
Over 51,000 outage incidents were recorded with AT&T's service around 7 a.m. ET on Thursday, impacting several major cities, including San Francisco, Houston, and Chicago.
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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