AT&T customers across the US lost 911 services for several hours

Cal Jeffrey

Posts: 4,154   +1,416
Staff member
Bottom line: If you are an AT&T customer and could not reach 911 this morning, you were not alone. Several regions across the United States experienced 911 outages when using AT&T cellular service. Landlines were unaffected.

Early Monday morning, AT&T customers were unable to reach emergency services due to a nationwide 911 outage on the carrier. According to tweets from officials in multiple states, the outage lasted for several hours.

Customers in Indiana, Texas, Minnesota, Washington, Wisconsin, and others began experiencing difficulties reaching 911 operators around 4 am PDT this morning. Many county and municipal officials took to social media to provide long-dial numbers to use in the event of an emergency.

Only AT&T cellular service was interrupted. The provider’s landlines were able to get through. No reports of trouble from other carriers have been reported. Outages like this occur from time to time but are usually isolated to a particular region. This one seemed far more wide-spread.

An AT&T spokesperson said that not all customers were affected and that the company worked quickly to resolve the issue as soon as it became aware of the problem. The spokesperson did not provide information on what caused the outage.

Technicians got the problem ironed out, and emergency services have been restored as of about 9 am PDT. No tragedies resulting from people not being able to reach 911 have been reported.

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I feel that China has been taking notes for a long time on where our digital vulnerabilities are. They likely caused many of them. China can cut off the outside Internet. Can the US do it also, just in case something very serious happens?
 
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