National Outage: AT&T + other major carriers experience widespread cellular service disruption

AT&T is having a crazy day. More than 70,000 customers woke up experiencing outages in places like Houston, Atlanta, Chicago and in parts of Alabama.

Plus, Cricket Wireless—AT&T’s sidekick—is also having difficulties with over 13,000 disruptions, reported by Downdetector on Thursday. Let’s get into it.

The stats: AT&T Birmingham outages

In the chart above provided by Downdetector, you can see the sudden surge in outages on Thursday, February 22.

Many customers noticed SOS messages popping up in the status bar of their cellphones, signaling difficulty connecting to their cellular provider’s network.

“Upon awakening, I glanced at my phone, only to discover it stuck in SOS mode, making me super confused. Consulting Google for help, I followed the recommended fix of restarting the device multiple times, yet nothing seemed to help. I couldn’t go back to sleep afterward because I was worried my alarm needed cell service to work properly.”

Camryn Cowan, Birmingham local

AT&T issued a statement around 10:15AM, saying that “three-quarters of our network has been restored”

“Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. Our network teams took immediate action and so far, three-quarters of our network has been restored. We are working as quickly as possible to restore service to remaining customers.”

Are you experiencing technical difficulties? Tag @thebamabuzz and let us know.