
Thousands of AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizonmobile phone users in the United States reported network problems, data from Downdetector showed on Thursday (Feb 22) . By 4.30 pm, there were nearly32,000 AT&T outages reported in the country.
Verizon also reported over 1,900 outages by 5 pm. Representatives for both the companies have not commented on the network outage yet. A little over 1,300 users of T-Mobile also reported network problems, and more than 11,000 outages were reported for Cricket Wireless, which is owned by AT&T.
AT&T is the world's fourth largest telecommunications company by revenue and the largest wireless carrier in the US. According to Statista, AT&T providealmost 46 per cent of all wireless subscriptions delivered by major operators in the country as of the first quarter of 2023.
Verizon is the second-largest network in the country, and accounted for 30 per centof all wireless subscriptions delivered by major operators in the US, Statista said.
In a post on social media platform X, theSan Francisco Fire Department said that the AT&T outage was impacting 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 said.
Thursday network outages sparked a meme fest on X."Sooo is the world ending tonight or we just gonna accept that AT&T Is utterly failing all of us I need to know," X user Robbie Khadersaid in a post on X.
"That moment insomnia hits and so does an AT&T outage," wrote another user.
"This outage was sus for an hour but coming to Twitter to see it was nationwide and not just ATT but also Verizon and T-Mobile. It’s giving Russian Cyber Attack energy. But let me just go back to bed," wrote a third on the social networking site.