Cellular outage reports increase at AT&T, Verizon and others as some 911 services affected

More U.S. cell phone users are reporting service outages Thursday at major networks, including AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, and the outage is impacting some 911 networks.  

Most of the problems are being reported at AT&T, per Downdetector, a website that tracks network outages. Around 7 a.m. ET, about 48,000 AT&T consumers reported that their network was out. Three hours later, that number increased to more than 71,000 outage reports.

Additionally, more than 12,000 Cricket Wireless consumers are reporting outages, as well as more than 3,500 Verizon users.

The outage also caused some consumers to incorrectly think that their cellular network was experiencing an outage after they were unable to contact users on other networks that were actually down.

Around 10 a.m. ET, Downdetector showed that nearly 1,900 T-Mobile users were out of service, but a T-Mobile spokesperson informed Just the News that the network did not suffer an outage.

"Our network is operating normally. Down Detector is likely reflecting challenges our customers were having attempting to connect to users on other networks," the spokesperson said. 

The San Francisco Fire Department posted on X, formerly Twitter that it is "aware of an issue impacting AT&T wireless customers from making and receiving any phone calls (including to 911)." People in need of emergency services are being instructed to use a landline if their cell phones do not work. 

The Oakland County Sheriff's Office, which serves 1.3 million Michigan residents in the Detroit metropolitan area, released a similar statement advising people in need of emergency assistance to "continue attempting to contact their local 911 center if they receive no signal or service on the first try."

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