GREENSBORO, N.C. — AT&T says it has restored service after an outage knocked out cellphone service on its network across the U.S. for hours. Customers couldn't make calls, send texts, or access the internet without wi-fi.
“We have restored wireless service to all our affected customers," AT&T said. "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.”
Outage tracker Downdetector noted that outages began at about 3:30 a.m. ET and peaked at around 73,000 reported incidents nationwide - including right here in the Piedmont Triad of North Carolina.
So far, no reason has been given for the outage.
The carrier has more than 240 million subscribers, the country’s largest. By 3:30 p.m. ET, the reports were down to fewer than 3,000.
Thousands of people across the country woke up to problems with their cell and internet service Thursday morning. AT&T customers were seeing 'SOS ONLY' on their phones.
According to DownDetector, customers also reported problems with other major networks. However, those networks said they didn't have issues and suggested the reports came from customers trying to contact AT&T customers.
Both Guilford County and Forsyth County 911 centers advised using another person's phone, a landline, or wi-fi texting 911 in case of an emergency.
WFMY News 2 spoke with customers outside of an AT&T store.
One customer Britteny Torres said she initially thought she'd pressed a wrong button on her phone. She then learned other customers were having the same issue.
"I'm relieved seeing the people 'cause it's like I'm not the only one. At first, I was going stir crazy, because I went to my settings and I could not figure out the issue," she said.
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