Thousands of AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon mobile users in US report network outages

Washington

Thousands of AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon mobile phone users in the United States reported network problems, data from Downdetector showed on Thursday (Feb 22) . By 4.30 pm, there were nearly 32,000 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 provide almost 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 cent of all wireless subscriptions delivered by major operators in the US, Statista said. 

'Outage impact people's ability to reach emergency services'

In a post on social media platform X, the San 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.

Network outages spark meme fest on X

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 Khader said 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.