Major Outage Hits AT&T, Verizon, And T-Mobile—Services Down Nationwide, Including 911 Calls

A major cellular outage has swept across the U.S., causing service disruptions across telecom providers, including AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T), Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) and T-Mobile US Inc. (NASDAQ:TMUS).

What Happened: More than 51,000 outage incidents were recorded with AT&T’s service around 7 a.m. ET, as per data from Downdetector. The outage impacted several major cities, including San Francisco, Houston, and Chicago.

Customers of Verizon (VZ.N), T-Mobile (TMUS.O), and US Cellular also experienced service disruptions, according to Downdetector’s data.

While there were a little over 3,000 outage incidents for T-Mobile, Verizon outage incidents were lower at a little over 1,200.

However, a T-Mobile spokesperson told Benzinga that the network did not experience an outage and that it is operating normally.

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The San Francisco Fire Department, via a post on social media platform X, alerted that the outage was hindering people’s ability to reach emergency services by dialing 911.

“We are aware of an issue impacting AT&T wireless customers from making and receiving any phone calls (including to 911),” the fire department stated, adding that they were “actively engaged and monitoring this.”

Why It Matters: This widespread outage has disrupted regular communication and posed a significant risk to public safety. Multiple police departments have acknowledged the issue, highlighting the severity of the situation.

The outage’s impact on emergency services underscores telecom companies’ critical role in maintaining public safety infrastructure.

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

Photo by Chad Morehead on Unsplash