Massive Cell Phone Outages Have Been Reported Across the Country
Tens of thousands of people across the country have been affected by a nationwide cell phone outage this morning, with AT&T customers the most likely to be impacted.
The issue began early Thursday morning and peaked with over 30,000 AT&T customers reporting outages, according to Downdetector.com
The outages continued throughout the morning, with more than 19,500 Verizon users and 853 T-Mobile users reporting outages around 7 a.m. ET.
By 7:30 a.m., 60,000 AT&T customers were reporting outages, as were nearly 12,000 Cricket Wireless customers.
“Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. We are working urgently to restore service to them,” AT&T said in a statement to USA TODAY on Thursday morning. “We encourage the use of Wi-Fi calling until service is restored.”
Even Emergency Calls Were Not Getting Through
According to Verizon, the problems their customers faced were not coming from their end.
“Verizon’s network is operating normally. Some customers experienced issues this morning when calling or texting with customers served by another carrier,” a Verizon spokesperson told USA TODAY just after 8 a.m. ET. “We are continuing to monitor the situation.”
At this time, it is unclear what has caused the cell phone outages. Some have speculated, however, that a large solar flare could have caused the issues. Without service, many customers were even unable to call emergency services.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department in North Carolina, for example, said it was aware of the outages and that “customers were briefly unable to contact 9-1-1.”
Note that if you’re currently in Disney World, you may not be able to use your phone to use any of the My Disney Experience app’s features, like booking Genie+ Lightning Lanes, placing Mobile Orders, or entering virtual queues.
Some areas of Disney World do feature complimentary Wi-Fi, however, so you could try connecting to resume using your phone.
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