AT&T says software update is cause of hours-long nationwide outage; service fully restored

Thousands of Americans dealt with cellular outages on AT&T, Cricket Wireless, Verizon, T-Mobile and other service providers on Thursday, according to data from Downdetector.

At around 4 p.m. AT&T announced its wireless service was restored for all the affected customers. The wireless carrier said a software update was the reason behind the outage.

“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,” AT&T wrote.

Now, the phone company said the incident was being investigated by the FBI, Homeland Security and the FCC.

Retired JSO director of Homeland Security and News4JAX Crime and Safety Analyst Tom Hackney said the outages should make everyone take a deeper look into our country’s infrastructure -- an infrastructure that includes electricity, internet, and communications.

“Without a stable communications system or power, the whole grid that goes with the power; with no power, there is no communication.  With no communication, law enforcement is impacted. Without law enforcement, that creates anarchy and Lord knows what else,” Hackney said.

At its highest point, AT&T had more than 74,000 outages around 8:10 a.m. ET, in locations including Jacksonville, Houston, Atlanta and Chicago. The outages began at approximately 3:30 a.m. ET. The carrier is the country’s largest with more than 240 million subscribers.

AT&T had more than 73,000 outages around 9:30 a.m. ET, in locations including Houston, Atlanta and Chicago. The outages began at approximately 3:30 a.m. ET. The carrier has more than 240 million subscribers, the country's largest.

The reported outages had plummeted to less than 23,000 by 12:25 p.m.

Several people in the News4JAX newsroom were among those affected.

Let us know: We want to know how the carrier outage affected you today. Let us know in the form below.

“Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. We are working urgently to restore service to them. We encourage the use of Wi-Fi calling until service is restored,” AT&T said in a statement.

Cricket Wireless had more than 13,000 reported outages around 8 a.m., Downdetector.com showed Thursday. Around 8 a.m., Verizon had more than 4,000 outages and T-Mobile had more than 1,900 outages at their peak, the outage tracking website said. Boost Mobile had more than 900 outages at its peak around 9:30 a.m.

“Verizon’s network is operating normally. Some customers experienced issues this morning when calling or texting with customers served by another carrier. We are continuing to monitor the situation,” Verizon said.

AT&T announced its wireless service was restored for all the affected customers. The wireless carrier said a software update was the reason behind the outage.

Despite the data on Downdetector.com, T-Mobile said that it did not experience an outage.

During the outage, various law enforcement agencies across the US were forced to warn people about problems calling 911 with a cell phone.

According to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, 911 is fully operational, along with the non-emergency line at JSO, which is 904-630-0500.

Flagler County deputies said they couldn’t receive texts to 911 but not calls from AT&T customers.

“It should be a wake-up call to non-partisan politicians to take a good hard look and let today be that example and say, ‘Ok, here’s a little look at what it could be.’ We need to put things in place to make sure we’re well-protected as a country and a state in case this occurs,” Hackney said.

Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly spoke with News4JAX over Zoom.

He said once his staff learned about this outage, they started testing things and making posts like this saying in part: “During this outage AT&T users may not be able to dial out or text to 911. The RapidSOS Feature is also disabled.”

Later updates included saying “Texts to 911 from affected AT&T users are now being received,” and “Dispatchers are working diligently monitoring RapidSOS.”

That’s a system the county uses to provide additional resources— which he says has been helpful on a day like today.

“It’s a portal that people can use to try to communicate with us. And if they’re phone goes into the SOS mode, but it does not connect what our dispatchers and call takers are doing are doing as long as the number comes in, as long as we receive the number before it disconnects, we are calling them back and hoping that we can get through to see if it is a true emergency,” Staly said.

AT&T has provided no reason for the outage.

The director of Communications for Green Cove Springs said their work phones were out earlier because of the outage, something she described in a later call as a “hiccup not a hurdle.”

“It really highlights how the world has become so dependent on technology that then when something goes down...” Staly said. “Everything’s a disaster at that point.”